Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1825.pdf/11

10 Literary Gazette, 26th March, 1825, Page 205

This poem is included in an article about The Diorama in Regent’s Park, which Letitia Landon visited and was thus inspired by the new display there, which was of ‘The Ruins of Holyrood Chapel, a moonlight scene’, by Louis Daguerre.

HOLYROOD.

The moonlight fell like pity o'er the walls And broken arches, which the conqueror, Time Had rode unto destruction; the grey moss, A silver cloak, hung lightly o'er the ruins; And nothing came upon the soul but soft, Sad images. And this was once a palace, Where the rich viol answered to the lute, And maidens flung the flowers from their hair Till the halls swam with perfume: here the dance Kept time with light harps, and yet lighter feet; And here the beautiful Mary kept her court, Where sighs and smiles made her regality, And dreamed not of the long and many years When the heart was to waste itself away In hope, whose anxiousness was as a curse: Here, royal in her beauty and her power, The prison and the scaffold, could they be But things whose very name was not for her! And this, now fallen sanctuary, how oft Have hymns and incense made it holiness; How oft, perhaps, at the low midnight hour, lts once fair mistress may have stolen to pour At its pure altar, thoughts which have no vent, But deep and silent prayer; when the heart finds