Reflections in Netley Abbey / Edward Hamley

Reflections in Netley Abbey

Alone, unseen, at this mild sober hour,
When fading Autumn with his season pale
Has ting'd the woods, I seek the ruin'd tow'r,
And mould'ring heaps, that spread the thorny dale.

Here sad reflection to the eye recalls
The spires commanding far the cheerful deeps,
The fretted pinnacles, and window'd walls,
Where now the melancholy ivy creeps.

The pond'ring stranger views with silent dread,
As to the stony cell he bends his way,
The broken roof suspended o'er his head,
Where mingling shafts and sculptur'd arms decay.

No hallow'd hymn now sounds, where wildly strown
With fragments rude the desert choir appears;
But echoing loud amid the cloysters lone
The daw's hoarse clamour meets my startled ears.

Void is the nich, where erst in holy state
Perhaps some Abbot's gorgeous image lay;
The slumb'ring brothers share their ruler's fate,
And not a stone records their useless day.

Alas! whate'er their virtues or their crimes,
'Tis all in blank oblivion buried deep;
Nor did they ween, how little future times
Would share their bliss, or for their sorrows weep.

For ev'n where droning Indolence repos'd,
Some finer souls might ache with keen distress;
And haply many a wretch full willing clos'd
His eyes, and shunn'd a life he could not bless.

Perchance some vot'ry sad of feeling heart,
As o'er the fading lawn he mus'd at eve,
Anxious might see the passing sail depart,
And call to mind a world he wept to leave.

Ev'n then some tender maid he lov'd too well,
And gave in thought th' endearing name of wife,
Might make his bleeding heart with sorrow swell,
And deeply rue his cold unsocial life;

Sad might he heave a deep-drawn sigh unseen,
And down his cheek a venial tear might fall,
To think how calm, how blest his days had been
With her, his bosom's joy, his life, his all.

The bell slow-beating thro' the gloom of night,
Might wake his soul to other thoughts than pray'r,
And, while his voice perform'd each solemn rite,
His wand'ring heart might own a tend'rer care.

So from his native woodlands torn away,
The little songster, conscious of his pain,
Sits dull and drooping all the livelong day,
And sings no more, or sings a sadder strain;

While from his joyless prison he surveys,
Flutt'ring with eager heart from side to side,
Earth's flow'ry mantle, and the budding sprays,
And hears in fancy still his long-lost bride.

~~

Edward Hamley (1764-1834)
from Poems of Various Kinds, 1795

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Edward Hamley biography

Patrick Nasmyth (1787–1831), Netley Abbey. Wikimedia Commons.