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| THOU relic of a bygone generation, | |
| Thou crumbling record of a vanished race, | |
| Towering aloft in lonely desolation, | |
| Like the great guardian spirit of the place: | |
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| Thy walls with age are mouldering, gray and hoary, | 5 |
| Where thy long transept lay the grass waves green; | |
| And scarce a remnant of thy former glory | |
| Remains to tell us what thou once hast been. | |
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| Yet here in days of yore a royal maiden | |
| Has ministered upon the sacred shrine; | 10 |
| And knights and nobles with their symbols laden | |
| Have joined the orisons and rites divine. | |
| |
| Here images of saints in dark-niched spaces | |
| Have peered on black-cowled monks devoid of smiles; | |
| And meek-eyed nuns, with fair and pensive faces, | 15 |
| Have flitted through the solemn-whispering aisles. | |
| |
| Here oft the sweet strains of an Ave Mary | |
| Have stolen through the twilight, still and clear; | |
| And the wild cadence of a Miserere | |
| Has struck upon the midnight’s startled ear. | 20 |
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| And in the frequent pauses of devotion, | |
| When silence brooded o’er the prostrate band, | |
| Was heard the deep-mouthed wailing of the ocean | |
| Beating forever on the rocky strand. | |
| |
| But all is changed!—no more the night-wind, stealing | 25 |
| Through thy dim galleries and vacant nave, | |
| Will catch the sound of music’s measured pealing | |
| And bear it far across the moonlit wave: | |
| |
| No more when morning gilds the eastern heaven | |
| Will early matins rise or organ swell; | 30 |
| And when the first stars gem the brow of even | |
| No more will sound the sweet-toned vesper bell. | |
| |
| Thy glory has gone by! and thou art standing | |
| In lonely pomp upon thy sea-washed hill, | |
| Wearing in hoary age a mien commanding, | 35 |
| And in thy desolation stately still! | |
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