POEMS. 



339 



The ruin'd Convent lies ; here wont to dwell 

 The lazy canon midst his cloister'd cell 

 While papal darkness brooded o'er the land. 

 Ere Reformation made her glorious stand : 

 Still oft at eve belated shepherd-swains 

 See the cowl'd spectre skim the folded plains. 



To the high temple would my stranger go/ 

 The mountain-brow commands the woods below ; 

 In Jewry first this order found a name, 

 When madding Croisades set the world in flame ; 

 When western climes, urg'd on by Pope and priest^ 

 Pour'd forth their millions o'er the delug'd east : 

 Luxurious knights, ill-suited to defy 

 To mortal fight Turcestan chivalry. 



Nor be the Parsonage by the muse forgot ; 

 The partial bard admires his native spot ; 

 Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child, 

 (Unconscious why) its scapes grotesque, and wild. 

 High on a mound th' exalted gardens stand, 

 Beneath, deep valleys scoop'd by Nature's hand. 

 A Cobham here, exulting in his art. 

 Might blend the General's with the Gardener's part ; 

 Might fortify with all the martial trade 

 Of rampart, bastion, fosse, and palisade ; 



«= The ruins of a priory, founded by Peter de Rupibus, 

 Bishop of Winchester. 



^ The remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars ; 

 at least it was a farm dependant upon some preceptory of that 

 order. I find it was a preceptory, called the preceptory of Sicding' 

 ton ; now called Sonthington. 



z 2 



