A sleepless night, a cheerless day, Now those endearing eyes are dim, And his twin spirit passed away. Now what to him is hill or dale, The summer’s sun or winter’s gale? Alas! they only tell a tale That wakes a sorrow in his breast, Whispering o’er and o’er again, That he _was_ blest, supremely blest. Autumn or winter, summer or spring, What are they now to him? He walks the earth like a withered thing, Whose lamp of life is dim. * * * * * * * The keenest pangs of mortal woes, And Sorrow’s agonizing throes, The briny drops of Misery That overflow the mourning eye, When Hope has lost its faintest gleam, Will make the sweetest Eden seem A barren and unkindly waste. Alas! how bitter to the taste Is that dark cup Remembrance fills With all the worst of human ills, And crowns with pleasures past away. As waters silently decay The flinty rocks they hourly fret, So does the wildness of Despair, And the slow canker of Regret, The weary human bosom wear. In Broomholme’s cloistered turret now Herbert de Colville lowly lies, And withered is his burning brow, And haggard are his frenzied eyes; Those wandering orbs whose meteor light Shines wildly from their mortal spheres, When Fever like a deadly blight, The wavering sense with madness sears; It fills the eye and rends the heart, When Reason’s heavenly rays depart, And leave the mind so faint and dim. That it had ever been to him, To leave the Abbey’s holy wall, And from that sweet Religion fall, That should have been his hope—his all, When earthly scenes began to pall; That he should learn the bitter truth, When buoyant hours are all gone by, That the wild erring steps of youth Must be retraced, when health and prime Have left the frame, and when the eye Is dim with pain and misery; When the lone heart is worn and weak, And the untiring hand of Time Hath written Manhood on his cheek. And round about him watchful stand The Brethren of that holy band, Whose pure devoted lives are given To work the glorious will of Heaven. And their’s is not a bigot’s zeal, Whose dear delight is but to heal The souls that pant for sweet repose, O’erwhelmed with sin and worldly woes, To succour in the hour of need The hearts that ache and inly bleed, Whose crown of glory is the meed, That Love upon the soul bestows; The sweet rejoicing of the heart, That well performs its mortal part; And not ingratitude nor slight, Nor the world’s cold and biting scorn, Contempt and scoffing hourly borne, Hath power to dim the holy light That Love around her votary flings, For she can wrap them in delight, And fan them with ambrosial wings, When death with calm approaches steep Their senses in eternal sleep. * * * * * *