Thou mouldering mansion, whose embattled side
Shakes as about to fall at every blast;
Once the gay pile of splendor, wealth, and pride,
But now the monument of grandeur past.
Fall'n fabric! pondering o'er thy time-trac'd walls,
Thy mouldering, mighty, melancholy state;
Each object, to the musing mind, recalls
The sad vicissitudes of varying fate.
Thy tall towers tremble to the touch of time,
The rank weeds rustle in thy spacious courts;
Fill'd are thy wide canals with loathly slime,
Where battening, undisturb'd, the foul toad sports.
Deep from her dismal dwelling yells the owl,
The shrill bat flits around her dark retreat;
And the hoarse daw, when loud the tempests howl,
Screams as the wild winds shake her secret seat.
'Twas here Avaro dwelt, who daily told
His useless heaps of wealth in selfish joy;
Who lov'd to ruminate o'er hoarded gold,
And hid those stores he dreaded to employ.
In vain to him benignant heaven bestow'd
The golden heaps to render thousands blest;
Smooth aged penury's laborious road,
And heal the sorrows of affliction's breast.
For, like the serpent of romance, he lay
Sleepless and stern to guard the golden sight;
With ceaseless care he watch'd his heaps by day,
With causeless fears he agoniz'd by night.
Ye honest rustics, whose diurnal toil
Enrich'd the ample fields this churl possest;
Say, ye who paid to him the annual spoil,
With all his riches, was Avaro blest?
Rose he, like you, at morn devoid of fear,
His anxious vigils o'er his gold to keep?
Or sunk he, when the noiseless night was near,
As calmly on his couch of down to sleep?
Thou wretch! thus curst with poverty of soul,
What boot to thee the blessings fortune gave?
What boots thy wealth above the world's controul,
If riches doom their churlish lord a slave?