Classic Poem

Sprite Hall

AN ENGLISH SCENE .

On mouldering battlement and wall
The sparkles of the moonlight fall;
On leaning tower, and crumbling arch
Assail'd and storm'd by ages' march, —
On shatter'd belfry, through whose bars
Twinkle and wink the heavenly stars, —
On drawbridge sinking in the stream,
Portcullis with its chain and beam, —
On castle-ditch and fosse and moat, —
The solemn lights of evening float.
It is a weird, forsaken place —
The relic of some vanish'd race,
On whom disaster, grief and death
Have sigh'd with desolating breath,
Humbled the lofty head in woe,
Genius and beauty levell'd low,
And laid the last heir in the gloom
Of the decay'd ancestral tomb.
So as the dusty years have fled,
And o'er the proud oblivion spread,
While the old masters of this spot
Have vanish'd in the dust, forgot,
So have the years with wasting power
Swept here o'er princely dome and tower,
Tumbling each turret to the ground
A shapeless, grass-o'ermantled mound;
On groined roof and cornice gay
Hung out a weedy banner gray,
And with the color'd mosses strown
The hearthstone and the threshold-stone.
Pale moonlight through the ruin shines,
Through ivies and the gadding vines,
And through each broken casement pours
Its checker'd light across the floors.
Its solemn broken gleam doth fall
Within the vast baronial hall,
Where long ago its noble lord
In grandeur feasted at the board;
Its panels of the polish'd oak,
Its mighty rafters dark with smoke,
Are mildew'd now with canker'd mould,
Wreath'd with the creeper's twisting fold;
And in each crypt and crevice there
Wave weed and grass and wild-flowers fair.
In the old time, from roof and beam
The great war-banners proud would stream,
Flags rent in many a battle-toil,
Or trophies of the vanquish'd spoil,
Flags by those stout old barons borne,
Their silken folds all glorious torn,
Have moldered; — on those rafters brave
But wild-briers and the nettles wave!
The Hall-gate with its iron rail
O'ercrowned with urns of marble pale,
On broken hinge doth idly swing
In every breeze that stirs its wing,
And may no more wide open stand
To welcome in the coming band.
The garden, once so trim and fair,
With flowery border, gay parterre,
Neglected hath no bloom to show
Where once the crimson rose would blow,
But year by year doth cast the seed
Of noxious thistle, tangled weed.
— Decay and solitude have made
Their home in this forsaken shade!English