Beneath yon ruin'd abbey's moss-grown piles
by Thomas, the Younger Warton
Beneath yon ruined Abbey's moss-grown piles
Oft let me sit, at twilight hour of Eve,
Where through some western window the pale moon
Pours her long-levelled rule of streaming light;
While sullen sacred silence reigns around,
Save the lone Screech-owl's note, who builds his bow'r
Amid the mouldering caverns dark and damp,
Or the calm breeze, that rustles in the leaves
Of flaunting Ivy, that with mantle green
Invests some wasted tower. Or let me tread
It's neighb'ring walk of pines, where mused of old
The cloistered brothers: through the gloomy void
That far extends beneath their ample arch
As on I pace, religious horror wraps
My soul in dread repose. But when the world
Is clad in Midnight's raven-coloured robe,
'Mid hollow charnel let me watch the flame
Of taper dim, shedding a livid glare
O'er the wan heaps; while airy voices talk
Along the glimm'ring walls, or ghostly shape
At distance seen, invites with beck'ning hand
My lonesome steps, through the far-winding vaults.
Nor undelightful is the solemn noon
Of night, when haply wakeful from my couch
I start: lo, all is motionless around!
Roars not the rushing wind; the sons of men
And every beast in mute oblivion lie;
All Nature's hushed in silence and in sleep.
O then how fearful is it to reflect,
That through the still globe's aweful solitude
No being wakes but me! 'till stealing sleep
My drooping temples bathes in opiate dews.
Nor then let dreams, of wanton Folly born,
My senses lead through flowery paths of joy;
But let the sacred Genius of the night
Such mystic visions send, as SPENSER saw,
When through bewildering Fancy's magic maze,
To the fell house of Busyrane, he led
Th' unshaken Britomart; or MILTON knew,
When in abstracted thought he first conceived
All heaven in tumult, and the Seraphim
Come towering, armed in adamant and gold.
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