That trembles on its brow sublime,
Triumphant o'er the spoils of Time."
These remains acquire additional beauty from their romantic situation. The roof has fallen in; but the pillars and tracery of many of the windows are perfect. The green lawn is covered with fragments of sculpture and memorials of those who once dwelt within this magnificent pile:
"But all is still. The chequer'd floor,
Shall echo to the step no more;
Nor airy roof the strain prolong
Of vesper chant or choral song."
BLOOMFIELD.
In the year 1634, Colonel Sandys attempted to make the Wye navigable by means of locks, but as this experiment was unsuccessful, they were afterwards removed. This river from the confluence of its mountain streams after heavy rains, is subject to sudden inundations, which though in many respects injurious to the farmer, greatly fertilize the meadows in its vicinity, and especially those near Monmouth, by the valuable matter it deposits. The tide of the Severn, from the peculiar projection of the rocks at the mouth of the Wye, flows up the latter river with great rapidity, to the height of more than forty feet. "The highest tide," says Mr. Coxe, "within the memory of the present generation, rose to fifty-six feet."
To the admirers of the architecture of the baronial mansions of the middle ages, the remains of the numerous castles which have been erected on the banks of the Wye to repel the incursions of the Welsh, by the Talbots and Strongbows, and other renowned families of former days, will afford the highest gratification, and give a silent though powerful admonition, that human grandeur endureth but for a day: