The mansion’s self was vast and venerable, With more of the romantic than had been Elsewhere preserved; the cloisters still were stable, The cells too and refectory I ween; An exquisite small chapel had been able Still unimpaired to decorate the scene; The rest had been reformed, replaced, or sunk, And spoke more of the baron than the monk. Huge halls, long galleries, spacious chambers, joined By no quite lawful marriage of the arts, Might shock a connoisseur; but, when combined, Formed a whole, which, irregular in parts, Yet left a grand impression on the mind, At least, of those whose eyes are in their hearts. The long and gloomy gallery, which, whoever views will be strongly reminded of Lara, as indeed a survey of this place will awake more than one scene in that poem,--had not yet relinquished the sombre pictures of its ancient race-- That frowned In rude, but antique portraiture around. In the study, which is a small chamber overlooking the garden, the books were packed up; but there remained a sofa, over which hung a sword in a gilt sheath; and at the end of the room opposite the window stood a pair of light fancy stands, each supporting a couple of the most perfect and finely-polished skulls I ever saw; most probably selected, along with the far-famed one converted into a drinking-cup, and inscribed with some well-known verses, from a vast number taken from the abbey cemetery, and piled up in the form of a mausoleum, but since recommitted to the ground. Between them hung a gilt crucifix. To those skulls he evidently alludes in Lara, where he makes his servants ask one another-- Why gazed he so upon the ghastly head, Which hands profane had gathered from the dead, That still beside his open volume lay, As if to startle all save him away? And they most probably suggested that fine passage in Childe Harold-- Remove yon skull from out those shattered heaps: Is that a temple where a God may dwell? Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered cell! Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall, Its chambers desolate, and portals foul; Yes, this was once ambition’s airy hall, The dome of thought, the palace of the soul; Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, The gay recess of wisdom and of wit, And passion’s host, that never brooked control: Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ. People this lonely tower, this tenement refit? In the servants’ hall, lay a stone coffin, in which were fencing gloves and foils; and on the wall of the ample but cheerless kitchen, was painted in large letters, “Waste not, want not.”