And soften’d Pride dropp’d penitential tears.
“Then convent walls and nunnery spires arose,
In pleasant spots which monk or abbot chose;
When counts and barons saints devoted fed,
And making cheap exchange, had pray’r for bread.
“Now all is lost, the earth where abbeys stood
Is layman’s land, the glebe, the stream, the wood:
His oxen low where monks retired to eat,
His cows repose upon the prior’s seat:
And wanton doves within the cloisters bill,