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| GRAY, gray is Abbey Assaroe, by Ballyshannon town; | |
| It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; | |
| The carven stones lie scattered in brier and nettle bed; | |
| The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. | |
| A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, | 5 |
| Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; | |
| The boor-tree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow, | |
| And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Assaroe. | |
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| It looks beyond the harbor-stream to Gulban Mountain blue; | |
| It hears the voice of Erna’s fall,—Atlantic breakers too; | 10 |
| High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars | |
| Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores; | |
| And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done, | |
| The weary fisher sculls his punt across the setting sun; | |
| While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below;— | 15 |
| But gray at every season is Abbey Assaroe. | |
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| There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge; | |
| He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain-ridge; | |
| He turned his back on Sheegus Hill, and viewed with misty sight | |
| The abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white; | 20 |
| Under a weary weight of years he bowed upon his staff, | |
| Perusing in the present time the former’s epitaph; | |
| For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe, | |
| This man was of the blood of them who founded Assaroe. | |
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| From Derry Gates to Drowas Tower, Tyrconnell broad was theirs; | 25 |
| Herdsmen and spearmen, bards and wine, and holy abbots’ prayers, | |
| With chanting always in the house which they had builded high | |
| To God and to Saint Bernard,—whereto they came to die. | |
| At least, no workhouse grave for him! the ruins of his race | |
| Shall rest among the ruined stones of this their saintly place. | 30 |
| The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and slow | |
| Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Assaroe. | |
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