Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/24

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Where never shines the sun, but all is dark,Dark as the bosom of their gloomy King."
So saying he arose, and by the handThe Virgin seized with such a death-cold touchAs froze her very heart; and drawing on,Her, to the abbey's inner ruin, ledResistless. Thro' the broken roof the moonGlimmer'd a scatter'd ray; the ivy twinedRound the dismantled column; imaged formsOf Saints and warlike Chiefs, moss-canker'd nowAnd mutilate, lay strewn upon the ground,With crumbled fragments, crucifixes fallen,And rusted trophies; and amid the heapSome monument's defaced legend spakeAll human glory vain.The loud blast roar'dAmid the pile; and from the tower the owlScream'd as the tempest shook her secret nest.He, silent, led her on, and often paus'd,
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