There was a voice that seemed to tell Of griefs that were to come Of friends whose parting word should be I stood where years before I stood Before that early home; The winter's whelming torrent flood, Had flung not there its foam; Nor there had war, with crimson hand, But there the hand of time had wrought, That perishing change on all, Which leaves but for the brooding thought The ruin ere the fall; Making the heart's deep pulse to be A warning of eternity, And love for things of earth to seem The wasted music of a dream, The flowers had perished not, but grew Less floridly and bright; They had not that same living hue, Which was around them when each stem And full of young sweet health as they. And there were all the things the eye But not the charm of old possest; To me, His desolating hand to spread. My heart had borne the blight and storm The toil of many years; But there was round the darkest form, No gloom so deep as that which pressed When hope its long-sought home surveyed, "Tis not the retrospective glance, That makes us scorn the dizzy dance It is the change of things we love, For their sakes who are now above The change of things whose forms are wrought Into that linked chain of thought. LINES WRITTEN AT EVENING, IN JERPOINT ABBEY. This noble Abbey is situated on the river Nore, about eight miles distant from Kilkenny. It was founded in 1180, by Donagh Fitz-Patrick, King of Ossory, for Cistersian Monks. Among the mitred abbeys, it was, in wealth, possessions, and architectural splendour, esteemed the fourth in the kingdom. Its extensive and beautiful ruins strikingly attest the justice of this ascribed distinction, as well as irresistibly command the admiration of every beholder. It was suppressed in 1540, and its estate of 1500 acres in demesne land, was granted, with its other estates, to Thomas Butler, tenth Earl of Ormond. The last Lord Abbot was Oliver Grace, one of the descendants of the famous Raymond le Gros, the companion and brotherin-law of Strongbow. This noble family long retained great power and immense property in the Queen's County, and in the County of Kilkenny, where their name and their deeds are still celebrated in the rude lays of the peasantry. How the earth darkens! not a day-beam cheers All is so sadly still! the cooling breeze, That from yon mountains their mild freshness bears, Now breathes not, floating through the blossom'd trees, To fan the sable garb which nature wears. No star upon our world's dark curtain beams, In power and brightness, beautifully lone : I gaze where Jerpoint's venerable pile, The worm now crawls through each untrodden aisle, It was not thus, when, in the olden time, The holy inmates of yon broken wall Lived free from woes which spring from care or crime, But mark where yonder dusky clouds roll on, The stream makes lonely music in its flow. |