Poem by Henry Glassford Bell

Haddon Hall

RUTLAND, Vernon, whatsoe’er
  The boasted rank, the lordly name,
All have melted into air,
  Ceased like an extinguished flame.

Solemn in the summer noon,
  Memory-ridden, hope-bereft,
Ghost-like ’neath the midnight moon
  By some trailing shadow cleft;

Vacant chamber of the dead,
  Through whose gloom fierce passions swept;
Mouldering couch whereon, ’t is said,
  The majesty of England slept;

Hall of wassail, which has rung
  To the unquestioned baron’s jest;
Dim old chapel, where were hung
  Offerings of the o’erfraught breast;

Moss-clad terrace, strangely still,
  Broken shaft, and crumbling frieze,
Still as lips that used to fill
  With bugle-blasts the morning breeze!

Careless river, gliding under,
  Ever gliding, lapsing on,
With no sense of awe or wonder
  At the ages which have gone;

Thou in thy unconscious flow
  Know’st not sorrows which destroy,
Yet this truth thou dost not know,—
  Sorrows give a zest to joy.

Every record of the past
  Makes the present more intense,
Love’s old temple overcast
  Wakes to love the living sense.

In the long-deserted hall,
  In dead beauty’s withered bower,
Closer clings the heart to all
  That makes glad the fleeting hour;—

Closer cling we unto those
  Who must leave us or be left;
Brighter in the sunset glows
  Life’s mysterious warp and weft.

1. In Dovedale
2. The Chestnut of Brazenose
3. Cadzow
4. Stratford-on-Avon at Night

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