Elegy on Newstead Abbey by Lord Byron

'It is the voice of years that are gone! they roll before me with all their deeds. ' / - OSSIAN

Newstead! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome! / Religion's shrine! repentant HENRY's pride! / Of warriors, monks, and dames the cloister'd tomb, / Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide,

Hail to thy pile! more honour'd in thy fall / Than modern mansions in their pillar'd state; / Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall, / Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate.

No mail-clad serfs, obedient to their lord, / In grim array the crimson cross demand; / Or gay assemble round the festive board / Their chief's retainers, an immortal band:

Else might inspiting Fancy's magic eye / Retrace their progress through the lapse of time, / Marking each ardent youth, ordaln'd to die, / A votive pilgrim in Judea's clime.

But not from thee, dark pile! departs the chief; / His feudal realm in other regions lay: / In thee the wounded conscience courts relief, / Retiring from the garish blare of day.

Yes! in thy gloomy cells and shades profound / The monk abjured a world he ne'er could view; / Or blood-stain'd guilt repenting solace found, / Or innocence from stern oppression flew.

A monarch bade thee from that wild arise, / Where Sherwood's outlaws once were wont to prowl; / And Superstition's crimes, of various dyes, / Sought shelter in the priest's protecting cowl.

Where now the grass exhales a murky dew, / The humid pail of life-extinguish'd clay, / In sainted fame the sacred fathers grew, / Nor raised their pious voices but to pray.

Where now the bats their wavering wings extend / Soon as the gloaming spreads her waning shade, / The choir did oft their mingling vespers blend, / Or matin orisons to Mary pald.

Years roll on years; to ages, ages yield; / Abbots to abbots, in a line, succeed; / Religion's charter their protecting shield, / Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed,

One holy HENRY rear'd the Gothic walls, / And bade the pious inmates rest in peace / Another HENRY the kind gift recalls, / And bids devotion's hallow'd echos cease.

Vain is each threat or supplicating prayer; / He drives them exiles from their blest abode, / To roam a dreary world in deep despair- / No friend, no home, no refuge, but their God.

Hark how the hall, resounding to the strain / Shakes with the martial music's novel din! / The heralds of a warrior's haughty reign, / High crested banners wave thy wails within.

Of changing sentinels the distant hum, / The mirth of feasts, the clang of burnish'd arms, / The braying trumpet and the hoarser drum, / Unite in concert with increased alarms.

An abbey once, a regal fortress now, / Encircled by insulting rebel powers, / War's dread machines o'erhang thy threat'ning brow, / And dart destruction in sulphureous showers.

Ah vain defence! the hostile traitor's siege, / Though oft repulsed, by guile o'er-comes the brave; / His thronging foes oppress the faithful liege, / Rebellion's reeking standards o'er him wave.

Not unavenged the raging baron yields; / The blood of traitors smears the purple plain / Unconqu'r'd still, his falchion there he wields, / And days of glory yet for him remain.

Still in that hour the warrior wish'd to strew / Self-gather'd laurel on a self-sought grave; / But Charles' protecting genius hither flew, / The monarch's friend, the monarch's hope, to save.

Trembling, she snatch'd him from th' unequal strife, / In other fields the torrent to repel; / For nobler combats, here reserved his life, / To lead the hand where godlike FALKLAND fell.