STANZAS ON REVISITING LUDLOW CASTLE.
Pale ruin! once more as I gaze on thy walls,
What memories of old, the sad vision recalls,
For change o'er thee lightly has past;
Yet what hearts are estrang'd and what bright hopes are fled,
And friends I erst dwelt with now sleep with the dead,
Since in childhood I gazed on thee last!
Thine image still rests on the clear stream beneath,
And flow'rs as of yore, thy old battlement wreathe,
Like rare friends by adversity's side;
Still clinging aloft, the wild tree I behold
That marks in derision, the spot, where of old
The standard once floated in pride.
But the conqueror, Time, hath thy banner o'erthrown,
And crumbled to ruin the courtyards that shone
With chivalry's gorgeous array;
And where music, and laughter so often have rung,
In thy tapestried halls, now the ivy hath flung
A mantle to hide their decay.
Through the hush of thy lone haunts I wander again,
Where these time-hallow'd relics, familiar remain,
As if charmed into magic repose;
The pass subterraneous,—the fathomless well,
The mound whence the violet peeps—and the cell
Where the fox-glove in solitude grows.
In the last rays of sunset thy grey turrets gleam,
Yet I linger with thee—as to muse o'er a dream,
That mournful truths soon will dispel;
My pathway winds onward—life's cares to renew,
And I feel, as thy towers now fade from my view,
'Tis for over—I bid thee farewell!
E.L.J.