There’s a pleasant place of rest, near a City of the West,
Where its bravest and its best find their grave.
Below the willows weep, and their hoary branches steep
In the waters still and deep,
Not a wave!
And the old Cathedral Wall, so scathed and grey and tall,
Like a priest surveying all, stands beyond;
And the ringing of its bell, when the ringers ring it well,
Makes a kind of tidal swell
On the pond!
And there it was I lay, on a beauteous summer’s day,
With the odour of the hay floating by;
And I heard the blackbirds sing, and the bells demurely ring,
Chime by chime, ting by ting,
Droppingly.
Then my thoughts went wandering back, on a very beaten track,
To the confine deep and black of the tomb;
And I wondered who he was, that is laid beneath the grass,
Where the dandelion has
Such a bloom.
Then I straightway did espy, with my slantly-sloping eye,
A carvèd stone hard by, somewhat worn;
And I read in letters cold—Here.lyes.Launcelot.ye.bolde,
Off.ye.race.off.Bogile.old,
Glasgow.borne.
He.wals.ane.valyaunt.knychte.maist.terrible.in.fychte.
Here the letters failed outright, but I knew
That a stout crusading lord, who had crossed the Jordan’s ford,
Lay there beneath the sward,
Wet with dew.
Time and tide they passed away, on that pleasant summer’s day,
And around me, as I lay, all grew old:
Sank the chimneys from the town, and the clouds of vapour brown
No longer, like a crown,
O’er it rolled.