"At a distance on the border of the lawn, stood another memento of Lord Byron; an oak planted by him in his boyhood, on his first visit to the abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in him, he linked his own destiny with that of the tree. 'As it fares,' said he, 'so will fare my fortunes.' Several years elapsed, many of them passed in idleness and dissipation. He returned to the abbey a youth scarce grown to manhood, but as he thought with vices and follies beyond his years. He found his emblem oak almost choked by weeds and brambles, and took the lesson to himself. "'Young oak, when I planted thee deep in the ground, I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine, That thy dark waving branches would flourish around, And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine. Such, such was my hope--when in infancy's years On the land of my fathers I reared thee with pride; They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears-- Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide.' "I leaned over the stone ballustrade of the terrace, and gazed upon the valley of Newstead, with its silver sheets of water gleaming in the morning sun. It was a Sabbath morning, which always seems to have a hallowed influence over the landscape, probably from the quiet of the day, and the cessation of all kinds of week day labor. As I mused upon the mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies of the man whose stormy temperament forced him from this tranquil paradise to battle with the passions and perils of the world, the sweet chime of bells from a village a few miles distant, came stealing up the valley. Every sight and sound this morning, seemed calculated to summon up touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village spire of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried! "I have since visited his tomb. It is in an old gray country church, venerable with the lapse of centuries. He lies buried beneath the pavement, at one end of the principal aisle. A light falls upon the spot through the stained glass of a gothic window, and a tablet on the adjacent wall announces the family vault of the Byrons. It had been the wayward intention of the poet to be entombed with his faithful dog in the monument erected by him in the garden of Newstead Abbey. His executors showed better judgment and feeling, in consigning his ashes to the family sepulchre, to mingle with those of his mother and his kindred. * * * * * "How nearly did his dying hour realize the wish made by him but a few years previously in one of his fitful moods of melancholy and misanthropy: "'When time, or soon or late, shall bring, The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o'er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep or wish the coming blow: No maiden with dishevelled hair, To feel or feign decorous woe.