Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/159

119 10.

Years roll on years; to ages, ages yield;

Abbots to Abbots, in a line, succeed:

Religion's charter, their protecting shield,

Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed.

11.

One holy rear'd the Gothic walls,

And bade the pious inmates rest in peace;

Another the kind gift recalls,

And bids devotion's hallow'd echoes cease.

12.

Vain is each threat, or supplicating prayer;

He drives them exiles from their blest abode,

To roam a dreary world, in deep despair—

No friend, no home, no refuge, but their God.

13.

Hark! how the hall, resounding to the strain,

Shakes with the martial music's novel din!

The heralds of a warrior's haughty reign,

High crested banners wave thy walls within.