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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Lady Of La Garaye - Prologue</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">RUINS! A charm is in the word: <br>It makes us smile, it makes us sigh, <br>'Tis like the note of some spring bird <br>Recalling other Springs gone by, <br>And other wood-notes which we heard <br>With some sweet face in some green lane, <br>And never can so hear again! <br>Ruins! They were not desolate <br>To us,--the ruins we remember: <br>Early we came and lingered late, </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Through bright July, or rich September; <br>With young companions wild with glee, <br>We feasted 'neath some spreading tree-- <br>And looked into their laughing eyes, <br>And mocked the echo for replies. <br>Oh! eyes--and smiles--and days of yore, <br>Can nothing your delight restore? <br>Return! <br>Return? In vain we listen; <br>Those voices have been lost to earth! <br>Our hearts may throb--our eyes may glisten, <br>They'll call no more in love or mirth. <br>For, like a child sent out to play, <br>Our youth hath had its holiday, <br>And silence deepens where we stand <br>Lone as in some foreign land, <br>Where our language is not spoken, <br>And none know our hearts are broken. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ruins! How we loved them then! <br>How we loved the haunted glen <br>Which grey towers overlook, <br>Mirrored in the glassy brook. <br>How we dreamed,--and how we guessed, <br>Looking up, with earnest glances, <br>Where the black crow built its nest, <br>And we built our wild romances; <br>Tracing in the crumbled dwelling <br>Bygone tales of no one's telling! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This was the Chapel: that the stair: <br>Here, where all lies damp and bare, <br>The fragrant thurible was swung, <br>The silver lamp in beauty hung, <br>And in that mass of ivied shade <br>The pale nuns sang--the abbot prayed. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This was the Kitchen. Cold and blank <br>The huge hearth yawns; and wide and high <br>The chimney shows the open sky; <br>There daylight peeps through many a crank <br>Where birds immund find shelter dank, <br>And when the moonlight shineth through, <br>Echoes the wild tu-whit tu-whoo <br>Of mournful owls, whose languid flight <br>Scarce stirs the silence of the night. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This is the Courtyard,--damp and drear! <br>The men-at-arms were mustered here; <br>Here would the fretted war-horse bound, <br>Starting to hear the trumpet sound; <br>And Captains, then of warlike fame, <br>Clanked and glittered as they came. <br>Forgotten names! forgotten wars! <br>Forgotten gallantry and scars! <br>How is your little busy day <br>Perished and crushed and swept away! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Here is the Lady's Chamber, whence <br>With looks of lovely innocence <br>Some heroine our fancy dresses <br>In golden locks or raven tresses, <br>And pearl embroidered silks and stuffs, <br>And quaintly quilted sleeves and ruffs, <br>Looked forth to see retainers go, <br>Or trembled at the assaulting foe. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">This was the Dungeon; deep and dark! <br>Where the starved prisoner moaned in vain <br>Until Death left him, stiff and stark, <br>Unconscious of the galling chain <br>By which the thin bleached bones were bound <br>When chance revealed them under ground. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, Time! oh, ever conquering Time! <br>These men had once their prime: <br>But now, succeeding generations hear <br>Beneath the shadow of each crumbling arch <br>The music low and drear, <br>The muffled music of thy onward march, <br>Made up of piping winds and rustling leaves <br>And plashing rain-drops falling from slant eaves, <br>And all mysterious unconnected sounds <br>With which the place abounds. <br>Time doth efface <br>Each day some lingering trace <br>Of human government and human care: </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The things of air <br>And earth, usurp the walls to be their own; <br>Creatures that dwell alone, <br>Occupy boldly: every mouldering nook <br>Wherein we peer and look, <br>Seems with wild denizens so swarming rife, <br>We know the healthy stir of human life <br>Must be for ever gone! <br>The walls where hung the warriors' shining casques <br>Are green with moss and mould; <br>The blindworm coils where Queens have slept, nor asks <br>For shelter from the cold. <br>The swallow,--he is master all the day, <br>And the great owl is ruler through the night; <br>The little bat wheels on his circling way <br>With restless flittering flight; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And that small black bat, and the creeping things, <br>At will they come and go, <br>And the soft white owl with velvet wings <br>And a shriek of human woe! <br>The brambles let no footstep pass <br>By that rent in the broken stair, <br>Where the pale tufts of the windle-strae grass <br>Hang like locks of dry dead hair; <br>But there the keen wind ever weeps and moans, <br>Working a passage through the mouldering stones. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oh, Time! oh, conquering Time! <br>I know that wild wind's chime <br>Which, like a passing bell, <br>Or distant knell, <br>Speaks to man's heart of Death and of Decay; <br>While thy step passes o'er the necks of Kings <br>And over common things,-- <br>And into Earth's green orchards making way, <br>Halts, where the fruits of human hope abound, <br>And shakes their trembling ripeness to the ground. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But hark, a sudden shout <br>Of laughter! and a nimble giddy rout, <br>Who know not yet what saddened hours may mean, <br>Come dancing through the scene! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ruins! Ruins! let us roam <br>Through what was a human home, <br>What care we <br>How deep its depths of darkness be? <br>Follow! Follow! <br>Down the hollow <br>Through the bramble-fencing thorns <br>Where the white snail hides her horns; <br>Leap across the dreadful gap <br>To that corner's mossy lap,-- <br>Do, and dare! <br>Clamber up the crumbling stair; <br>Trip along the narrow wall, <br>Where the sudden rattling fall <br>Of loosened stones, on winter nights, <br>In his dreams the peasant frights: <br>And push them, till their rolling sound, <br>Dull and heavy, beat the ground. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now a song, high up and clear, <br>Like a lark's enchants the ear; <br>Or some happy face looks down, <br>Looking, oh! so fresh and fair, <br>Wearing youth's most glorious crown, <br>One rich braid of golden hair: <br>Or two hearts that wildly beat, <br>And two pair of eager feet, <br>Linger in the turret's bend <br>As they side by side ascend, <br>For the momentary bliss <br>Of a lover's stolen kiss; <br>And emerge into the shining <br>Of that summer day's declining, <br>Disengaging clasping hands <br>As they meet their comrade bands; <br>With the smile that lately hovered, <br>(Making lips and eyes so bright,) <br>And the blush which darkness covered <br>Mantling still in rosy light! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ruins! Oh! ye have your charm; </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Death is cold, but life is warm; <br>And the fervent days we knew <br>Ere our hopes grew faint and few, <br>Claim even now a happy sigh, <br>Thinking of those hours gone by: <br>Of the wooing long since passed,-- <br>Of the love that still shall last,-- <br>Of the wooing and the winning; <br>Brightest end to bright beginning; <br>When the feet we sought to guide <br>Tripped so lightly by our side, <br>That, as swift they made their way <br>Through the path and tangled brake, <br>Safely we could swear and say <br>We loved all ruins for their sake! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=354023" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Gentle hearts, one ruin more <br>From amongst so many score-- <br>One, from out a host of names, <br>To your notice puts forth claims. <br>Come! with me make holiday, <br>In the woods of La Garaye, <br>Sit within those tangled bowers, <br>Where fleet by the silent hours, <br>Only broken by a song <br>From the chirping woodland throng. <br>Listen to the tale I tell: <br>Grave the story is--not sad; <br>And the peasant plodding by <br>Greets the place with kindly eye <br>For the inmates that it had!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Caroline+Elizabeth+Sarah+Norton">Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton</a></strong></div>