If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins gray.
When the broken arches are dark in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
Wnen silver edges the imagery,
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
And the howlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,
Then go--but go alone the while--
Then view St. David's[2] ruined pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair.
* * * * *
By a steel-clench'd postern door,
They enter'd now the chancel tall;
The darken'd roof rose high aloof
On pillars, lofty, light, and small;
The key-stone, that lock'd each ribbed aisle,
Was a fleur-de-lys or a quatre-feuille;
The corbells[3] were carved grotesque and grim;
And the pillars, with cluster'd shafts so trim,
With base and capital furnish'd around,
Seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound.