The ruin'd convent lies: here wont to dwell
The lazy canon midst his cloister'd cell,
While Papal darkness brooded o'er the land,
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand:
Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains
See the cowl'd spectre skim the folded plains.

To the high Temple would my stranger go,
The mountain-brow commands the woods below:
In Jewry first this order found a name,
When madding Croisades set the world in flame;
When western climes, urged on by pope and priest
Pour'd forth their minions o'er the deluged East:
Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy
To mortal fight Turcestan chivalry.

Nor be the parsonage by the Muse forgot --
The partial bard admires his native spot;
Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child,
Unconscious why, its capes, grotesque and wild.
High on a mound th' exalted gardens stand,
Beneath, deep valleys, scoop'd by Nature's hand.
A Cobham here, exulting in his art,
Might blend the general's with the gardener's part;
Might fortify with all the martial trade
Of rampart, bastion, fosse, and palisade;
Might plant the mortar with wide threat'ning bore,
Or bid the mimic cannon seem to roar:

Now climb the steep, drop now your eye belong