Although we did not, at this time, enter even the churchyard, thoughts and feelings which had presented themselves in this very spot, on the day of Lord Byron’s funeral, again returned. His birth, his death, dark fortunes, and brief life, Wondrous and wild as his impetuous lay, Passed through my mind; his wanderings, loves, and strife; I saw him marching on from day to day: The kilted boy, roaming mid mountains grey; The noble youth, whose life-blood was a flame, In the bright land of demi-gods astray; The monarch of the lyre, whose haughty name Spread on from shore to shore, the watchword of all fame; And then, a lifeless form! The spell was broke; The wizard’s wild enchantment was destroyed; He who at will did dreadful forms invoke, And called up beautiful spirits from the void, Back to the scenes in which he early joyed, He came but knew it not. In vain earth’s bloom-- In vain the sky’s clear beauty, which oft buoyed His spirit to delight; an early doom Brought him in glory’s arms to the awaiting tomb. He lies--how quietly that heart which yet Never could slumber, slumbers now for aye! He lies--where first, love, fame, his young soul set With passionate power on flame; where gleam the grey Turrets of Newstead, through the solemn sway Of verdurous woods; and where that hoary crown Of lofty trees, “in circular array,” Shroud Mary’s Hall, who thither may look down, And think how he loved her, ay, more than his renown. ANNESLEY HALL. From Hucknall we ascended chiefly through open, wild lands:--to our right the wooded valley of Newstead, every moment spreading itself out more broadly; and before us the forest heights of Annesley, growing more bold and attractive. A wild gusty breeze, and dark flying clouds, added sensibly to the deep solitude and picturesque character of the scene. We soon passed a cottage, having beside it an old brick pillar surmounted with a stone ball, and before it an avenue of lime trees, which appeared some time to have formed the boundary or place of entrance to the park; then a new lodge, and found ourselves at the foot of the steep hill, styled in Byron’s Dream-- A gentle hill, Green, and of mild declivity. The greenness and mildness of declivity, however, we afterwards found were on the side by which Byron and Mary Chaworth had ascended it from her house; on this side it is a remarkably barren and extremely steep hill. However, up we went, and on the summit discovered the strict accuracy of his delineation of it.