Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Whitby Abbey
By William Leighton (18411869)T
Thou crumbling record of a vanished race,
Towering aloft in lonely desolation,
Like the great guardian spirit of the place:
Where thy long transept lay the grass waves green;
And scarce a remnant of thy former glory
Remains to tell us what thou once hast been.
Has ministered upon the sacred shrine;
And knights and nobles with their symbols laden
Have joined the orisons and rites divine.
Have peered on black-cowled monks devoid of smiles;
And meek-eyed nuns, with fair and pensive faces,
Have flitted through the solemn-whispering aisles.
Have stolen through the twilight, still and clear;
And the wild cadence of a Miserere
Has struck upon the midnight’s startled ear.
When silence brooded o’er the prostrate band,
Was heard the deep-mouthed wailing of the ocean
Beating forever on the rocky strand.
Through thy dim galleries and vacant nave,
Will catch the sound of music’s measured pealing
And bear it far across the moonlit wave:
Will early matins rise or organ swell;
And when the first stars gem the brow of even
No more will sound the sweet-toned vesper bell.
In lonely pomp upon thy sea-washed hill,
Wearing in hoary age a mien commanding,
And in thy desolation stately still!