Who knows not Melville's beechy grove,
And Roslin's rocky glen,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love,
And classic Hawthornden?
Yet never a path, from day to day,
The pilgrim's footsteps range,
Save but the solitary way
To Burndale's ruin'd Grange.
A woeful place was that, I ween,
As sorrow could desire;
For, nodding to the fall was each crumbling wall,
And the roof was scathed with fire.
It fell upon a summer's eve,
While on Carnethy's head,
The last faint gleams of the sun's low beams
Had streak'd the gray with red;
And the convent-bell did vespers tell,
Newbottle's oaks among,
And mingled with the solemn knell
Our Ladye's evening song:
The heavy knell, the choir's faint swell,
Came slowly down the wind,
And on the pilgrim's ear they fell,
As his wonted path he did find.
Deep sunk in thought, I ween, he was,
Nor ever rais'd his eye,
Untill he came to that dreary place,
Which did all in ruins lie.
He gazed on the walls, so scathed with fire,
With many a bitter groan—
And there was aware of a Gray Friar,
Resting him on a stone.
"Now, Christ thee save!" said the Gray Brother;
"Some pilgrim thou seemest to be."
But in sore amaze did Lord Albert gaze,
Nor answer again made he.
"O come ye from east, or come ye from west,
"Or bring reliques from over the sea,
"Or come ye from the shrine of St James the divine,
"Or St John of Beverly?"