David Macbeth Moir

Crichton Chapel

HOW like an image of repose it looks,
That ancient, holy, and sequestered pile!
Silence abides in each tree-shaded aisle,
And on the gray spire caw the hermit rooks:
So absent is the stamp of modern days,	
That in the quaint carved oak, and oriel stained
With saintly legend, to reflection’s gaze
The star of Eld seems not yet to have waned.
At pensive eventide, when streams the west
On moss-greened pediment, and tombstone gray,
And spectral Silence pointeth to Decay,
How preacheth Wisdom to the conscious breast,
Saying, “Each foot that roameth here shall rest”:
To God and Heaven Death is the only way!