THE CASTLE.

So both a safety from the wind
In mutual dependence find.

"Tis now the raven's bleak abode ;
'Tis now the apartment of the toad;
And there the fox securely feeds;
And there the poisonous adder breeds,
Concealed in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there falls
Huge heaps of hoary, mouldered walls.
Yet Time has seen, that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow,-

Has seen this broken pile complete,

Big with the vanity of state.

But transient is the smile of Fate!

A little rule, a little sway,

A sunbeam in a winter's day,

Is all the proud and mighty have

Between the cradle and the grave.

JOHN DYER.

THE CASTLE.

T stood embosomed in a happy valley,

Crowned by high woodlands, where the druid oak
Stood like Caractacus in act to rally

His host, with broad arms gainst the thunder-stroke;

And from beneath his boughs were seen to sally

The dappled foresters as day awoke,

82

THE CASTLE.

The branching stag swept down with all his herd,
To quaff a brook which murmured like a bird.

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,

Broad as transparent, deep and freshly fed
By a river, which its softened way did take

In currents through the calmer waters spread
Around the wild fowl nestled in the brake

And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed :
The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fixed upon the flood.

Its outlet dashed into a deep cascade

Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding
Its shriller echoes-like an infant made
Quiet-sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet; and thus allayed,

Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding
Its windings, through the woods: now clear, now blue,
According as the skies their shadows threw.

BYRON.