WALL-FLOWER. 
It sheds a halo of repose 
Around the wrecks of Time: 
To beauty give the flaunting Rose,— 
The Wall-flower is sublime. 
Flower of the solitary place! 
Grey Ruin’s golden crown! 
That lendest melancholy grace 
To haunts of old renown: 
Thou mantlest o’er the battlement, 
By strife or storm decay’d; 
And fillest up each envious rent 
Time’s canker-tooth hath *made. 
Thy roots outspread the ramparts o’er 
Where, in war’s stormy day, 
The Douglases stood forth of yore 
In battle’s grim array: 
The clangour of the field is fled, 
The beacon on the hill 
No more through midnight blazes red — 
But thou art blooming still! 
Whither hath fled the choral band 
That fill’d the abbey’s nave? 
Yon dark sepulchral yew trees stand 
O’er many a level grave: 
In the belfry’s crevices the dove 
Her young brood nurseth well, 
Whilst thou, lone flower, dost shed above 
A sweet decaying smell. 
