Which at mid height thread the chancel wall,"
all form a scene of most charming and beautiful effects.
And we stood there, with the blue sky looking in through the shattered arches, the noisy rooks flying hither and thither on their morning calls, the turf, soft, green, and springy, sprinkled here and there with wild flowers, in the centre of the ruin, while festoons of ivy waved in the breeze, like tapestry hung about the shattered windows and crumbling columns.
Here was the place, and the day was one of those quiet, dreamy spring days, on which tourists could sit
"Them down on a marble stone,"
and read bold Deloraine's visit to the wizard's grave, as described by Scott in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. And here is his grave, an unpoetical-looking place enough now, and perhaps less wonderful since Branksome's knight wrenched it open, and took away the magic volume from Michael Scott's dead clasp. Here is the spot where Robert Bruce's heart was buried; here the grave of the Earl of Douglas, "the dark Knight of Liddesdale," and of Douglass, the hero of Chevy Chase; while quaint and Latin inscriptions on the walls and the time-worn slabs record the resting-place of once proud, but now extinct families and forgotten heroes, all now one common dust.
We must not forget the great windows of the abbey, more especially the east window. I write it in large letters, for it is an architectural poem, and it will live in my memory as a joy forever, it is such a thing of beauty. The lightness of its proportions and beauty of its tracery at once impress the beholder; and all around the sides and above it are quaint and wonderfully-executed sculptures in the stone-work—statues, chain and crown; figures on carved pedestals, beneath canopies of wrought stone, while wreaths and sculptured flowers are artistically wrought in various directions.
The exterior of the abbey presents remarkable symmetry, and a profusion of embellishment in sculptured stone-work, and is built in the usual form of such structures—a Latin cross. The nave, in its present ruined condition, is two hundred and fifty-eight feet long, by seventy-nine in breadth. The transept is one hundred and thirty feet long, and forty-four in breadth, which will give some idea of the size of these splendid old edifices of the Romish church. The ornamental carving, with which the whole edifice is so profusely decorated, would afford study for a month, and consists, besides delicately-chiselled flowers and plants, of grotesque and curious figures of monks, saints, nuns, demons, &c.
Among other sculptures is that of a man seated cross-legged, upholding a pedestal on his shoulders, his features expressing pain at the heavy weight; a group of musicians playing on various instruments and performing different antics; a man with his head in his hand; monks with rosaries, cooks with knife and ladle, grinning heads, and women with faces veiled and busts displayed; effigies of the apostles, rosettes, ribbed work, bouquets of flowers, scallop shells, oak leaves, acorns, lilies and plants; in fact, the faithfulness with which well-known plants have been represented by the sculptor has long been the subject of comment of the historian and antiquarian; and "in this abbey," says an historian, "there are the finest lessons and the greatest variety of Gothic ornaments that the island affords, take all the religious structures together."