And rule and compass to plan and trace Each door and window, and terrace and wall, Ha! many a summer sunrise found Wise John at his great and patient toil, At his squares and circles, and legends and lines, Till the house with its pillared porch began Long lines of sunny southern wall, With mullioned windows, row on row, And balustrades, and parapets, Where the western wind should wildly blow; And cresting all the vanes, to burn And glisten over miles of fern. When thirteen Junes had burnt away, The house arose as out of a dream: Wide and stately, and tall and fair, With windows to catch the sunset gleam; Two hundred feet of western front, And chapel and turret, and acres of roof, One day the builder smiling sat, His red-lined parchments slowly rolled, He bound and numbered them, fold by fold; And sat as gravely in the sun, As if his toil had scarce begun. Yes, there his life's work stately stood, That centuries hence, when he was dead, And there were the long white terraces, That rose like a fountain o'er the land; They found him there when daybreak came, But the plans had dropped from his thin wan hands, A frozen smile was on his face; And when they spoke no word he said, For John of Padua sat there — dead! Walter Thornbury. Lorton Vale. YEW-TREES. HERE is a yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, THERE Which to this day stands single, in the midst To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea To be destroyed. But worthier still of note Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with fantasy, and looks May meet at noontide, Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the skeleton William Wordsworth. L Lowther. LOWTHER. OWTHER! in thy majestic pile are seen With the baronial castle's sterner mien: And charters won and guarded by the sword For airy promises and hopes suborned The strength of backward-looking thoughts is scorned. Fall if ye must, ye towers and pinnacles, With what ye symbolize; authentic story Will say ye disappeared with England's glory! William Wordsworth. STANZAS WRITTEN IN LADY LONSDALE'S ALBUM, AT LOWTHER CASTLE. COMETIMES in youthful years, SOM When in some ancient ruin I have stood, I felt my cheeks bedewed, A melancholy thought hath made me grieve Not for themselves alone Our fathers lived; nor with a niggard hand Their piles, memorials of the mighty dead, With other feelings now, Lowther! have I beheld thy stately walls, The sun those wide-spread battlements shall crest, Till centuries in their course invest Thy towers with sanctity. |