| |
| RUTLAND, Vernon, whatsoe’er | |
| The boasted rank, the lordly name, | |
| All have melted into air, | |
| Ceased like an extinguished flame. | |
| |
| Solemn in the summer noon, | 5 |
| Memory-ridden, hope-bereft, | |
| Ghost-like ’neath the midnight moon | |
| By some trailing shadow cleft; | |
| |
| Vacant chamber of the dead, | |
| Through whose gloom fierce passions swept; | 10 |
| Mouldering couch whereon, ’t is said, | |
| The majesty of England slept; | |
| |
| Hall of wassail, which has rung | |
| To the unquestioned baron’s jest; | |
| Dim old chapel, where were hung | 15 |
| Offerings of the o’erfraught breast; | |
| |
| Moss-clad terrace, strangely still, | |
| Broken shaft, and crumbling frieze, | |
| Still as lips that used to fill | |
| With bugle-blasts the morning breeze! | 20 |
| |
| Careless river, gliding under, | |
| Ever gliding, lapsing on, | |
| With no sense of awe or wonder | |
| At the ages which have gone; | |
| |
| Thou in thy unconscious flow | 25 |
| Know’st not sorrows which destroy, | |
| Yet this truth thou dost not know,— | |
| Sorrows give a zest to joy. | |
| |
| Every record of the past | |
| Makes the present more intense, | 30 |
| Love’s old temple overcast | |
| Wakes to love the living sense. | |
| |
| In the long-deserted hall, | |
| In dead beauty’s withered bower, | |
| Closer clings the heart to all | 35 |
| That makes glad the fleeting hour;— | |
| |
| Closer cling we unto those | |
| Who must leave us or be left; | |
| Brighter in the sunset glows | |
| Life’s mysterious warp and weft. | 40 |
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