Come, Maurice, come: the lawn as yet
Is hoar with rime, or spongy-wet;

But when the wreath of March has blossomed, Crocus, anemone, violet,

Or later, pay one visit here,

For those are few we hold as dear;

Nor pay but one, but come for many,

Many and many a happy year.

Alfred Tennyson.

Fletching.

THE BELLS OF FLETCHING.

THE Fletching bells, with silver chime,

Come softened o'er the distant shore; Though I have heard them many a time, They never sang so sweet before.

A silence rests upon the hill,

A listening awe pervades the air; The very flowers are shut and still, And bowed as if in prayer.

Anonymous.

Fonthill Abbey.

FONTHILL ABBEY.

THE mighty master waved his wand, and, lo!
On the astonished eye the glorious show
Burst like a vision! Spirit of the place!
Has the Arabian wizard with his mace
Smitten the barren downs, far onward spread,
And bade the enchanted palace rise instead?
Bade the dark woods their solemn shades extend
High to the clouds yon spiry tower ascend?
And starting from the umbrageous avenue
Spread the rich pile, magnificent to view?
Enter! from the arched portal look again
Back on the lessening woods and distant plain!
Ascend the steps! the high and fretted roof
Is woven by some elfin hand aloof:

Whilst from the painted windows' long array
A mellow light is shed as not of day.
How gorgeous all! O, never may the spell

Be broken that arrayed those radiant forms so well!
William Lisle Bowles.

A

Fountain's Abbey.

FOUNTAIN'S ABBEY.

LAS, alas! those ancient towers,
Where never now the vespers ring,

But lonely at the midnight hours
Flits by the bat on dusky wing.

No more beneath the moonlight dim,
No more beneath the planet ray,
Those arches echo with the hymn

That bears life's meaner cares away.

No more within some cloistered cell,
With windows of the sculptured stone,
By sign of cross and sound of bell,

The world-worn heart can beat alone.

How needful some such tranquil place,
Let many a weary one attest,
Who turns from life's impatient race,
And asks for nothing but for rest.

How many, too heart-sick to roam
Still longer o'er the troubled wave,
Would thankful turn to such a home, -
A home already half a grave.

Anonymous.

A

FOUNTAIN'S ABBEY.

BBEY! forever smiling pensively,

How like a thing of Nature dost thou rise, Amid her loveliest works! as if the skies, Clouded with grief, were arched thy roof to be, And the tall trees were copied all from thee! Mourning thy fortunes, while the waters dim Flow like the memory of thy evening hymn; Beautiful in their sorrowing sympathy,

As if they with a weeping sister wept,

Winds name thy name! But thou, though sad, art calm,
And Time with thee his plighted troth hath kept;
For harebells deck thy brow, and at thy feet,
Where sleep the proud, the bee and redbreast meet,
Mixing thy sighs with Nature's lonely psalm.

Ebenezer Elliott.

Furness Abbey.

TO FURNESS ABBEY.

I.

MOD, with a mighty and an outstretched hand,
Stays thee from sinking, and ordains to be

His witness lifted 'twixt the Irish Sea

And that still beauteous, once faith-hallowed land. Stand as a sign, monastic prophet, stand!

Thee, thee the speechless, God hath stablished thee To be his Baptist, crying ceaselessly

In spiritual deserts like that Syrian sand!

Man's little race around thee creep and crawl,
And dig, and delve, and roll their thousand wheels;
Thy work is done: henceforth sabbatical

Thou restest, while the world around thee reels;
But every scar of thine and stony rent

Cries to a proud, weak age, "Repent, repent!'

II.

IRTUE goes forth from thee and sanctifies

VIRTU

That once so peaceful shore whose peace is lost,

To-day doubt-dimmed, and inly tempest-tost,

Virtue most healing when sealed up it lies

In relics, like thy ruins. Enmities

Thou hast not. Thy gray towers sleep on mid dust; But in the resurrection of the just

Thy works, contemned to-day, once more shall rise.
Guard with thy dark compeer, cloud-veiled Black Coombe,
Till then a land to nature and to grace

So dear. Thy twin in greatness, clad with gloom,
Is grander than with sunshine on his face:
Thou mid abjection and the irreverent doom

Art holier -O, how much!—to hearts not base.

Aubrey de Vere.