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Crowning a flowery slope it stood alone In gracious sanctity. A bright rill wound, Caressingly, about the holy ground; And warbled, with a never-dying tone, Amidst the tombs. A hue of ages gone Seemed, from that ivied porch, that solemn gleam Of tower and cross, pale quivering on the stream, O'er all th' ancestral woodlands to be thrown, And something yet more deep. The air was fraught With noble memories, whispering many a thought Of England's fathers; loftily serene, They that had toil'd, watch'd, struggled, to secure, Within such fabrics, worship free and pure, Reigned there, the o'ershadowing spirits of the scene.