Читать книгу Young Americans Abroad - Various - Страница 11

"Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear;

Take that best gift which Heaven so lately gave.

To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care

Her faded form; she bowed to taste the wave,

And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line?

Does sympathetic fear their breasts alarm?

Speak, dead Maria; breathe a strain divine;

E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.

Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;

Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;

And if so fair, from vanity as free,

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love—

Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die,

(Twas e'en to thee,) yet, the dread path once trod,

Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high,

And bids the pure in heart behold their God."

In the cloisters we saw the tomb of Bird the artist, a royal academician, and a native of Bristol. We were much interested with a noble bust of Robert Southey, the poet, which has just been erected in the north aisle. It stands on an octangular pedestal of gray marble, with Gothic panels. The bust is of the most exquisitely beautiful marble. The inscription is in German text.