"Here from her casement, as she cast a look, Oft might she mourn their reckless sport to scan; And well rejoice to find, in classic book, Solace,--withdrawn from all that pleasure can Impart to rude and riot-loving man: Aye, and when at the banquet, revels ran To loud extreme, she here was wont to haste, And marvel at Creation's mighty plan; Or with old bards and sages pleasure taste, Unknown to Folly's crowd, whose days all run to waste. "And thus it was--the child of solitude, She grew apart, beneath that Father's eye Who careth for the wild-birds' nestling brood, And decks the flow'ret with its varied dye; Nor, in His presence, had she cause to sigh For the vain pageants of delusive mirth; Trained to uplift her soul, in musing high, From this dark vale of wretchedness and dearth, Aloft, above the stars, where angels have their birth. "Well had she need! a scaffold was the path To that abode her soul had often sought; Scarce crowned before the stormiest clouds of wrath Rolled o'er her head, with scathing ruin fraught. Alas, for human greatness! it is nought! And nought she found it, save a deadly snare. Enchantment, by the evil genii wrought, Whose diadems conceal the brow of care; Whose tissued robes display a lustre false, as fair. "Beautiful martyr! widowed by the hand That reft thee of thy life, ere yet 'twas thine; Thy grave to find beneath a guilty land, Thou hast no need of gilded niche or shrine! Fond recollections round thy memory twine-- A sacred halo circles thy brief years; 'Tis thine, redeemed from sin and death, to shine Eternally above this world of fears: Where Christ himself, thy King, hath wiped away all tears. "Farewell, thou mouldering relic of the past! An hour unmeetly was not spent with thee: Events as rapid as the autumn's blast Have hurried onward, since 'twas thine to see The fairest flower of England pensively Expand and blossom 'neath thy rugged shade; And here thou stand'st, while circling seasons flee, A monumental pile of that sweet maid, Whom men of cruel hands within the charnel laid." _The Author of the Visions of Solitude._ [Illustration] [Illustration: GLENDOUR'S OAK] Glendour's Oak. "Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all That once lived here, thy brethren: A shatter'd veteran, hollow trunk'd, And with excoriate forks deformed-- Relic of ages."