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is lighted by three beautiful windows ; the one to the 

 east is that of which Sir Walter Scott has thus written : 



li The moon on the east oriel shone 



Through slender shafts of shapely stone, 



By foliaged tracery combined : 



Thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand, 



Twixt poplars straight, the ozier wand 



In many a freakish knot had twined ; 



Then framed a spell, when the work was done, 



And changed the willow wreaths to stone." 



The cloisters are much admired for the chasteness 

 and beauty of the carving. The cloister door is that by 

 which the aged monk in the " Lay " is said to have 

 brought Sir William of Deloraine when he came at the 

 request of the Lady of Buccleuch to take the book 

 from the grave of the wizard. In the Gothic, nature 

 alone was imitated; hence the endless variety and 

 beauty of the designs. In the ornamented freize, run- 

 ning along above the false Gothic arches on the east 

 wall, no two of the ornamental figures are alike ; it is 

 thus described by Lockhart. " There is one cloister in 

 particular, along the whole length of which there runs 

 a cornice of flowers and plants, entirely unrivalled, to 

 my mind by anything elsewhere extant. I do not say 

 in Gothic architecture merely, but in any architecture 

 whatever. Eoses and lilies, and thistles, and ferns, and 

 heaths, in all their varieties, and oak leaves and ash 

 leaves, and a thousand beautiful shapes besides, are 

 chiselled with such inimitable truth, and such grace of 

 nature, that the finest botanist in the world could not 

 desire a better hortus siccus, so far as they go." It is 

 said that the stones of the floor in front of the seats on 

 the east cover the ashes of many of the departed. 



u The pillared arches over their head — 

 Beneath their feet, the bones of the dead." 



It would be difficult indeed, to say whereabouts in 

 the Abbey, the dead have not been buried. Tom 



