Classic Poem

ADDRESSED TO THE RUNS OF DUNDRENNAN ABBEY IN GALLOWAY .

Proud Monastery of ancient time!
That strik'st the soul with awe profound,
Whose ruin'd battlements, sublime,
Are with thick mantling ivy crown'd;
Scarce dares the rook to gaze around,
From the dread summit of thy walls,
While tumbling fragments oft resound,
Far thro' thy long arch'd echoing halls;
Where the winds howling, wild and rude,
Appal the timid heart of pensive Solitude.

Ye shrines to Superstition rear'd!
Where, in the times of gothic night,
The holy brotherhood, rever'd,
Led thro' these aisles the taper'd rite,
And now, oft in the wan moon-light,
The ghosts of full arm'd knights are seen,
Who for the cross awoke the fight,
Far on the plains of Palestine.
Now 'neath the fractur'd vault their ashes rest,
Where the long whisp'ring grass waves o'er the warrior's breast.

Alike dread ruin lords it wide,
O'er the gay seat, or humbler bower,
Destroys the temple's sacred pride,
And heaps in dust the cloud-topt tow'r.
Here, where oft in the midnight hour,
Devotion struck her silver lyre,
And praising hosts were heard to pour
Such strains as wake the soul on fire.
Now, o'er the sod that hides the slumb'ring saint,
The grey owl to the moon still breathes her hated plaint.

Yes! where the altar stood rever'd,
The lowing herd unconscious strays,
And oft the goat, with snowy beard,
Looks o'er the window's fractur'd base.
And where, oft to Jehovah's praise,
Peal'd the loud organ, long and deep,
Now on his pipe the shepherd plays,
Or on some tomb-stone falls asleep;
Nor dreams of death, tho' stretch'd o'er his cold bed,
Nor dreads the tottering walls impending o'er his head.

Halls! that to Scotia's injur'd queen,
The last sweet night of freedom gave,
Ere had she cross'd you billows green,
That Cumbria's distant mountains lave.
Sad hour! that bade her tempt the wave,
And bore her from her natal lands,
To find no peace but in that grave
Dug by her murderer's bloody hands.
Oh! had thy walls, O shrine, her flight withheld,
Whose matchless woes alone her matchless charms excell'd!

Ye battlements! that look to heav'n,
That in your wrecks your grandeur show,
In vain six hundred years have striven,
To lay in dust that grandeur low:
And yet, full many an age must flow,
Ere shall these long arch'd vistas fall,
Tho' where chiefs sat, now thistles grow,
And nettles hide the sculptur'd wall;
And holy men have led the sacred mass,
Where the rank hemlock waves, o'er the thick-tufted grass.

Be mine, when evening's lively hues
Paint thy long aisles with glowing red,
Dundrennan! thro' thy courts to muse,
Where sleep the long forgotten dead.
Since were thy deep foundations laid
By Gallovidian Fergus' hands,
Have twice twelve powerful monarchs sway'd
The sceptre o'er these smiling lands;
Yet thou must sink at last, destroy'd by years,
And the plow tear the soil which thy proud structures bears.