from Canto XIII

51

A paragraph in every paper told
     Of their departure: such is modern fame:
‘Tis pity that it takes no further hold
     Than an advertisement, or much the same;
When, ere the ink be dry, the sound grows cold.
     The Morning Post was foremost to proclaim—
“Departure, for his country seat, to-day,
Lord H. Amundeville and Lady A.

52

“We understand the splendid host intends
     To entertain, this autumn, a select
And numerous party of his noble friends;
     Midst whom we have heard, from sources quite correct,
The Duke of D— the shooting season spends,
     With many more by rank and fashion decked;
Also a foreigner of high condition,
The Envoy of the secret Russian Mission.”

53

And thus we see—who doubts the Morning Post?
     (Whose articles are like the “Thirty Nine,”
Which those most swear to who believe them most)—
     Our gay Russ Spaniard was ordained to shine,
Decked by the rays reflected from his host,
     With those who, Pope says, “greatly daring dine.”
‘Tis odd, but true,—last war the News abounded
More with these dinners than the killed or wounded;—

54

As thus: “On Thursday there was a grand dinner;
     Present, Lords A. B. C.”—Earls, dukes, by name
Announced with no less pomp than victory’s winner:
     Then underneath, and in the very same
Column: Date, “Falmouth. There has lately been here
     The Slap-Dash Regiment, so well known to fame;
Whose loss in the late action we regret:
The vacancies are filled up—see Gazette.”

55

To Norman Abbey whirled the noble pair,—
     An old, old monastery once, and now
Still older mansion, of a rich and rare
     Mixed Gothic, such as Artists all allow
Few specimens yet left us can compare
     Withal: it lies perhaps a little low,
Because the monks preferred a hill behind,
To shelter their devotion from the wind.

56

It stood embosom’d in a happy valley,
     Crown’d by high woodlands, where the Druid oak
Stood like Caractacus in act to rally
     His host, with broad arms ‘gainst the thunder-stroke;
And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally
    The dappled foresters—as day awoke,
The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmured like a bird.

57

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
     Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its soften’d way did take
     In currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wild fowl nestled in the brake
    And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fix’d upon the flood.

58

Its outlet dash’d into a steep cascade,
     Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes—like an infant made
     Quiet—sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allay’d
     Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue,
According as the skies their shadows threw.

59

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile,
     (While yet the church was Rome’s) stood half apart
In a grand Arch, which once screened many an aisle.
     These last had disappear’d—a loss to Art:
The first yet frowned superbly o’er the soil,
     And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,
Which mourn’d the power of time’s or tempest’s march,
In gazing on that venerable Arch.

60

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,
    Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone;
But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,
     But in the war which struck Charles from his throne,
When each house was a fortalice—as tell
     The annals of full many a line undone,—
The gallant Cavaliers, who fought in vain
For those who knew not to resign or reign.