Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79. | | | | Lacock | | Lacock Nunnery | | William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850) |
| | | I STOOD upon the stone where Ela lay, | |
| The widowed founder of these ancient walls, | |
| Where fancy still on meek devotion calls, | |
| Marking the ivied arch and turret gray,— | |
| For her soul’s rest—eternal rest—to pray; | 5 |
| Where visionary nuns yet seem to tread, | |
| A pale dim troop, the cloisters of the dead, | |
| Though twice three hundred years have flown away! | |
| But when with silent step and pensive mien, | |
| In weeds, as mourning for her sisters gone, | 10 |
| The mistress of this lone monastic scene | |
| Came, and I heard her voice’s tender tone, | |
| I said, Though centuries have rolled between, | |
| One gentle, beauteous nun is left, on earth alone. | | | | |
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