Poem by Ebenezer Elliott

Fountain’s Abbey

ABBEY! forever smiling pensively,
How like a thing of Nature dost thou rise,
Amid her loveliest works! as if the skies,
Clouded with grief, were arched thy roof to be,
And the tall trees were copied all from thee!
Mourning thy fortunes,—while the waters dim
Flow like the memory of thy evening hymn;
Beautiful in their sorrowing sympathy,
As if they with a weeping sister wept,
Winds name thy name! But thou, though sad, art calm,
And Time with thee his plighted troth hath kept;
For harebells deck thy brow, and at thy feet,
Where sleep the proud, the bee and redbreast meet,
Mixing thy sighs with Nature’s lonely psalm.

1. The Maltby Yews
2. Cloudless Stanage
3. Win-Hill
4. Plumpton
5. The Tree of Rivilin

Anonymous Fountain’s Abbey ("ALAS, alas! those ancient towers")

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