Remains of rude magnificence. Nor wholly yet had time defaced
Thy lordly gallery fair;
Nor yet the stony cord unbraced,
Whose twisted notes, with roses laced,
Adorn thy ruined stair.
Still rises unimpaired, below,
The courtyard's graceful portico;
Above its cornice, row and row
Of fair hewn facets richly show
Their pointed diamond form,
Though there but houseless cattle go,
To shield them from the storm.
And, shuddering, still may we explore,
Where oft whilom were captives pent,
The darkness of thy Massy More;
Or, from thy grass-grown battlement,
May trace, in undulating line,
The sluggish mazes of the Tyne.
OW like an image of repose it looks,
That ancient, holy, and sequestered pile!
Silence abides in each tree-shaded aisle,
And on the gray spire caw the hermit rooks:
So absent is the stamp of modern days,
That in the quaint carved oak, and oriel stained
With saintly legend, to reflection's gaze
The star of Eld seems not yet to have waned.
At pensive eventide, when streams the west
On moss-greened pediment, and tombstone gray,
And spectral Silence pointeth to Decay,
How preacheth Wisdom to the conscious breast,
Saying, "Each foot that roameth here shall res":
To God and Heaven Death is the only way!
David Macbeth Moir.
Crockston (Crookston, Cruxtoun).
THROUGH CROCKSTON CASTLE'S LANELY WA'S.
HROUGH Crockston Castle's lanely wa's
The wintry wind howls wild and dreary;
Though mirk the cheerless e'ening fa's,
Yet I ha'e vowed to meet my Mary.
Yes, Mary, though the winds should rave
Wi' jealous spite to keep me frae thee,
The darkest stormy night I'd brave,
For ae sweet secret moment wi' thee.
Loud o'er Cardonald's rocky steep
Rude Cartha pours in boundless measure; But I will ford the whirling deep,
That roars between me and my treasure.
Yes, Mary, though the torrent rave,
Wi' jealous spite, to keep me frae thee,
Its deepest flood I'd bauldly brave,
For ae sweet secret moment wi' thee.
The watch-dog's howling loads the blast,
And makes the nightly wanderer eerie;
But when the lonesome way is past,
I'll to this bosom clasp my Mary!
Yes, Mary, though stern winter rave,
With a' his storms, to keep me frae thee,
The wildest dreary night I'd brave,
For ae sweet secret moment wi' thee.
Y Crookston Castle waves the still green yew,
Breast that met the royal Mary's view,
When, bright in charms, the youthful princess led
The graceful Darnley to her throne and bed:
Embossed in silver, now its branches green
Transcend the myrtle of the Paphian queen.
But dark Langside, from Crookston viewed afar,
Still seems to range in pomp the rebel war;
Here, when the moon rides dimly through the sky,
The peasant sees broad dancing standards fly,
And one bright female form, with sword and crown,
Still grieves to view her banners beaten down.
HOU gray and antique tower,
Receive a wanderer of the lonely night,
Whose moodful sprite
Rejoices at this witching time to brood
Amid thy shattered strength's dim solitude!
It is a fear-fraught hour,
A deathlike stillness reigns around,
Save the wood-skirted river's eerie sound,
And the faint rustling of the trees that shower
Their brown leaves on the stream,
Mournfully gleaming in the moon's pale beam:
O, I could dwell forever and forever
In such a place as this, with such a night!
When o'er thy waters and thy waving woods
The moonbeams sympathetically quiver,
And no ungentle thing on thee intrudes,
And every voice is dumb, and every object bright!
Relique of earlier days,
Yes, dear thou art to me!
And beauteous, marvellously,
The moonlight strays
Where banners glorious floated on thy walls
Clipping their ivied honors with its thread
And though o'er thee Time's wasting dews have shed Their all-consuming blight,
Maternal moonlight falls
On and around thee full of tenderness,
Yielding thy shattered frame pure love's divine caress.
That girdles thy baronial strength, and traced,
All gracefully, the labyrinthine dance;
Young hearts discoursed with many a passionate glance,
While rose and fell the Minstrel's thrilling strain
(Who, in this iron age, might sing in vain,
His largesse coarse neglect, and mickle pain!)
Waste are thy chambers tenantless, which long
Echoed the notes of gleeful minstrelsie,
Notes once the prelude to a tale of wrong,
Of royalty and love. Beneath yon tree,
Now bare and blasted, so our annals tell,
The martyr queen, ere that her fortunes knew
A darker shade than cast her favorite yew,
Loved Darnley passing well,
Loved him with tender woman's generous love,
And bade farewell awhile to courtly state
And pageantry for yon o'ershadowing grove,
For the lone river's banks where small birds sing, –
Their little hearts with summer joys elate,·
Where tall broom blossoms, flowers profusely spring;
There he, the most exalted of the land,
Pressed, with the grace of youth, a sovereign's peerless
|