Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/198

The choicest pictures, and the power to quaff
Immense potations from the wassail-bowl
Envied accomplishment.
But Haddon tells
Still of another age, and suits itself
To their more courtly manners. Carvings rich,
And gilded cornices, and chambers hung
With tapestry of France, and shapely grate
Instead of chimney vast, and fair recess
Of oriel window, mark the advancing steps
Of comfort and refinement.
Here moved on,
In stately minuet, lords with doublet slashed,
And ladies rustling in the stiff brocade;
And there, the deep-mouthed hounds the chase pursued,
The maiden ruling well her palfrey white,
With knight and squire attendant.
Hear we not
Even now their prancing steeds?
'T is passing strange!
Dwell death and life in mystic company?
Do hands invisible, of spectres pale
Tend these young plants, and bind yon straggling boughs
In beautiful obedience?
—Come they back,
From their old mouldering vaults, when none are near,
And with their spirit-eyes inspect the flowers
That once they loved? Toil they in shadowy ranks

Mid these deserted bowers, then flit away?