The steersman hail'd, and touch'd the land.

SUDDEN the change; at once to tread
The grass-grown mansions of the dead!
Awful to feeling, where, immense,
Rose ruin'd, gray magnificence;
The fair-wrought shaft all ivy-bound,
The tow'ring arch with foliage crown'd,
That trembles on its brow sublime,
Triumphant o'er the spoils of time.
Here, grasping all the eye beheld,
Thought into mingling anguish swell'd.
And check'd the wild excursive wing,
O'er dust or bones of priest or king;
Or rais'd some STRONGBOW[A] warrior's ghost
To shout before his banner'd host.
[Footnote A: They shew here a mutilated figure, which they call the famous
Earl Strongbow; but it appears from Coxe that he was buried at
Gloucester.]
But all was still.--The chequer'd floor
Shall echo to the step no more;
Nor airy roof the strain prolong,
Of vesper chant or choral song.

TINTERN, thy name shall hence sustain
A thousand raptures in my brain;
Joys, full of soul, all strength, all eye,
That cannot fade, that cannot die.

No loitering here, lone walks to steal,