After walking some miles, a ruined mansion at the end of an ancient avenue of elms attracted their attention. As they made a point of leaving no place unexamined, they walked up to it. There was an air of melancholy grandeur in its loneliness and desolation which interested them to know its history. The briers that choked the court, the weeds that grew from the fissures of the walls and on the ledges of the windows, the fractured glass, the half-fallen door, the silent and motionless clock, the steps worn by the tread of other years, the total silence of the scene of ancient hospitality, broken only by the voices of the rooks whose nests were in the elms, all carried back the mind to the years that were gone. There was a sun-dial in the centre of the court: the sun shone on the brazen plate, and the shadow of the index fell on the line of noon. ‘Nothing impresses me more,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘in a ruin of this kind, than the contrast between the sun-dial and the clock, which I have frequently observed. This contrast I once made the basis of a little poem, which the similarity of circumstances induces me to repeat to you though you are no votary of the spirit of rhyme.’ THE SUN-DIAL The ivy o’er the mouldering wall Spreads like a tree, the growth of years: The wild wind through the doorless hall A melancholy music rears, A solitary voice, that sighs, O’er man’s forgotten pageantries. Above the central gate, the clock, Through clustering ivy dimly seen, Seems, like the ghost of Time, to mock The wrecks of power that once has been. The hands are rusted on its face; Even where they ceased, in years gone by, To keep the flying moments’ pace: Fixing, in Fancy’s thoughtful eye, A point of ages passed away, A speck of time, that owns no tie With aught that lives and breathes to-day. But ‘mid the rank and towering grass, Where breezes wave, in mournful sport, The weeds that choke the ruined court, The careless hours, that circling pass, Still trace upon the dialled brass The shade of their unvarying way: And evermore, with every ray That breaks the clouds and gilds the air, Time’s stealthy steps are imaged there: Even as the long-revolving years In self-reflecting circles flow, From the first bud the hedgerow bears, To wintry nature’s robe of snow. The changeful forms of mortal things Decay and pass; and art and power Oppose in vain the doom that flings Oblivion on their closing hour;