NEVER more, when the day is o'er, Will the lonely vespers sound; No bells are ringing -- no monks are singing, When the moonlight falls around. A few pale flowers, which in other hours May have cheered the dreary mood; When the votary turned to the world he had spurned, And repined at the solitude. Still do they blow 'mid the ruins below, For fallen are fane and shrine, And the moss has grown o'er the sculptured stone Of an altar no more divine. Still on the walls where the sunshine falls, The ancient fruit-tree grows; And o'er tablet and tomb, extends the bloom Of many a wilding rose. Fair though they be, yet they seemed to me To mock the wreck below; For mighty the tower, where the fragile flower May now as in triumph blow. Oh, foolish the thought, that my fancy brought; More true and more wise to say, That still thus doth spring, some gentle thing, With its beauty to cheer decay. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH BY B.R. HAYDON by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SONNET TO GEORGE SAND: 1. A RECOGNITION by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 13 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE HEART OF A WOMAN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE RAINY SUMMER by ALICE MEYNELL THE VIGIL OF JOSEPH by ELSA BARKER RETURN by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN ON THE DEATH OF REV. LEVI PARSONS by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |