IVY-GIRT RUINS.
From the ruined, crumbling wall,
Ancient fragments downwards fall,
No longer held in iron grasp
By ivy hands, which twining clasp
Those ancient towers and turrets grey,
To which their girdling brings decay.
As an old nation, tottering to its fall,
Doth foreign legions to its armies call,
A time triumphant! then the hireling Band,
That erstwhile strengthened, seize on the command.
Alike the ivy and the friend
Their aid insidious freely lend,
And gradual push their fibres in,
Until the tower or land they win,—
Until the yoke is firmly placed,
Or firm the twigs are interlaced;
Then dies all freedom from the conquered land,—
Then is the ancient tower compelled to stand,
Supporting by its strength the plant whose sway,
Like despot monarch’s, brings it sure decay.
Years wear away, the despot’s crown
Is green with laurel of renown.
In slavery the nation groans:
Griped by the iron twigs, the stones,
Disjointed from their firm array
By tyrant plants’ (or monarchs’) sway,
Fall crashing down, and in like ruin hurled
Are walls, and stones, and conqu’rors of the world;
Oppressors and oppressed all equal share
The curse inhaled in slavery’s foul air.
Treis boasts a fine church and good inns. Carden is a town of size, and many of the buildings deserve notice, the first is the old toll-house, the landing-place.
Toll-house.
On the hill opposite Carden is a chapel high upon a rock: the road leading to it has at intervals shrines, at which the religious processions halt on their way to the chapel. Through the vineyards inland of the town there is also a road, with shrines at every ten yards; this likewise leads up to a Calvary chapel. Carden, in the number of its religious edifices, surpasses all the other small towns on the river.
Many of these buildings are now secularised into barns and outhouses, but the church of St. Castor has just been repaired, as also a small, elegant chapel, that stands close to the river.