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.