THE HERON, s 
Old Heron, all those times are past, 
Those jocund troops are fled ; 
The king, the queen, the keepers green, 
The dogs, the hawks are dead! 
In many a minster’s solemn gloom, 
In shattered abbeys lone, 
Lie all thy crowned enemies, 
In midnight vaults of stone! 
The towers are torn, the gates outworn, 
Portcullis, moat, and mound 
Are vanished all, or faintly mark 
Some rarely-trodden ground. 
O’er all those abbeys, convents, all 
Those chantries and crosses, 
Where thou didst glide past in thy pride, 
Grow tawny ferns and mosses. 
Where banners waved, the ivy grows ;— 
Baronial times are o’er! 
The forests now are cornfields green, 
Green is the lakelet’s shore. 
c3 
