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Translated by Thomas Furlong
ABROAD one night in loneliness I strolled, | |
| Along the wave-worn beach my footpath lay; | |
| Struggling the while with sorrows yet untold, | |
| Yielding to cares that wore my strength away: | |
| On as I moved, my wayward musings ran | 5 |
| O’er the strange turns that mark the fleeting life of man. | |
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| The little stars shone sweetly in the sky; | |
| Not one faint murmur rose from sea or shore; | |
| The wind with silent wing went slowly by, | |
| As though some secret on its path it bore: | 10 |
| All, all was calm,—tree, flower, and shrub stood still, | |
| And the soft moonlight slept on valley and on hill. | |
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| Sadly and slowly on my path of pain | |
| I wandered, idly brooding o’er my woes; | |
| Till full before me on the far-stretched plain, | 15 |
| The ruined abbey’s mouldering walls arose; | |
| Where far from crowds, from courts and courtly crimes, | |
| The sons of virtue dwelt, the boast of better times. | |
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| I paused,—I stood beneath the lofty door, | |
| Where once the friendless and the poor were fed; | 20 |
| That hallowed entrance, that in days of yore | |
| Still opened wide to shield the wanderer’s head,— | |
| The saint, the pilgrim, and the book-learned sage, | |
| The knight, the travelling one, and the worn man of age. | |
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| I sat me down in melancholy mood, | 25 |
| My furrowed cheek was resting on my hand; | |
| I gazed upon that scene of solitude, | |
| The wreck of all that piety had planned: | |
| To my aged eyes the tears unbidden came, | |
| Tracing in that sad spot our glory and our shame. | 30 |
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| “And O,” cried I, as from my breast the while | |
| The struggling sigh of soul-felt anguish broke, | |
| “A time there was, when through this storm-touched pile | |
| In other tones the voice of echo spoke | |
| Here other sounds and sights were heard and seen,— | 35 |
| How altered is the place from what it once hath been! | |
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| “Here in soft strains the solemn mass was sung; | |
| Through these long aisles the brethren bent their way; | |
| Here the deep bell its wonted warning rung, | |
| To prompt the lukewarm loitering one to pray; | 40 |
| Here the full choir sent forth its stream of sound, | |
| And the raised censer flung rich fragrance far around.” | |
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| How changed the scene!—how lonely now appears | |
| The wasted aisle, wide arch, and lofty wall; | |
| The sculptured shape,—the pride of other years, | 45 |
| Now darkened, shaded, sunk and broken all: | |
| The hail, the rain, the sea-blown gales have done | |
| Their worst, to crown the wreck by impious man begun. | |
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| Through the rent roof the aged ivy creeps; | |
| Stretched on the floor the skulking fox is found; | 50 |
| The drowsy owl beneath the altar sleeps, | |
| And the pert daws keep chattering all around; | |
| The hissing weasel lurks apart unseen, | |
| And slimy reptiles crawl where holy heads have been. | |
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| In the refectory now no food remains; | 55 |
| The dormitory boasts not of a bed; | |
| Here rite or sacrifice no longer reigns; | |
| Prior, brethren, prayers, and fasts and forms are fled: | |
| Of each, of all, here rests not now a trace, | |
| Save in these time-bleached bones that whiten o’er the place. | 60 |
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| O that such power to baseness was decreed; | |
| O that mischance such triumphs should supply; | |
| That righteous Heaven should let the vile succeed, | |
| And leave the lonely virtuous one to die! | |
| O Justice, in the struggle where wert thou? | 65 |
| Thy foes have left this scene changed as we see it now. | |
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| I too have changed,—my days of joy are done, | |
| My limbs grow weak, and dimness shades mine eye; | |
| Friends, kindred, children, dropping one by one, | |
| Beneath these walls now mouldering round me lie. | 70 |
| My look is sad, my heart has shrunk in grief,— | |
| O Death, when wilt thou come and lend a wretch relief? | |
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