Page:Heath's Book of Beauty 1833.pdf/39

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Alike in vain. She faded from that hour. Quiet and voiceless in her grief, 'twas like A bird that perishes, the cause unknown;— We see the plumage fade, the bright crest droop, But reck not of the secret wound within. No more they saw her, at the evening hour, Along the terrace wandering mid the flowers, The fair exotic favourites shelter'd there; No more her step rejoiced the aged ear, And made the music of the lonely hearth; And soon closed windows, shutting out the day, Told there was death within that ancient house. She died with one last wish upon her lips: It was accomplished. Never more the vault Where her forefathers slept received its dead; For she, the last of that old line, slept not Within the sculptured chapel of her race. They buried her beneath the glad green earth; The sunshine, like a blessing, falling round, And kissing off the tears which night had wept. Those stately walls are levelled with the ground; The yellow corn waves o'er them; that fair park Is covered now with cottages and fields. But in a lonely nook of forest land Her grave remains: there is a mound of grass; A broken cross, grey and with moss o'ergrown; A little open space is fill'd with flowers— Wilding ones, growing amid furze and fern; A brook runs through, which, like a natural hymn,