from The Bijou Literary Annual, 1828
author: By H.B.
source date: 1828
edition published: 20170606
availability: Freely available via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser
William Pickering London
1828
pp. 315-317

Haddon Hall

By H.B.

Haddon within thy silent halls,
Deserted courts, and turrets high,
How mournfully on memory falls,
Past scenes of antique pageantry.

A holy spell pervades thy gloom,
A silent charm breathes all around,
And the dread stillness of the tomb
Reigns o'er they hallow'd, haunted, ground.

King of the Peak! thy hearth is lone,
No sword- girt vassals gather there,
No minstrel's harp pours forth its tone
In praise of Maud or Margaret fair.

Where are the high and stately dames
Of princely Vernon's bannered hall?
and where the knights, and what their names,
Who led them forth to festival?

They slumber low, and in the dust,
Prostrate and fall'n the warrior lies;
His faulchion's blade is dim with rust, —
And quench'd the ray of beauty's eyes!

Those arms which once blazed through the field
Their brightness never shall resume,
O'er spear and helm, and broken shield,
Low droops the faded sullied plume.

Arise ye! Might dead, arise!
Can Vernon, Rutland, Stanley sleep?
Whose gallant hearts and eagle eyes,
Disdained alike to crouch or weep?

And ye who owned the orbs of light,
The golden trees — the pure fair brow —
In the cold sleep of endless night,
Say, do the Vernon's daughters bow?

No, no, they wake! a seraph guard,
To circle this their loved domain;
Which Time has spared,nor man has marr'd
With sacrilegious hand profane.

Haddon! they chivalry are fled!
The tilt and tourney's brave array,
Where knights in steel, from heel to head,
Bore love's or honor's prize away.

No hunter's horn iis heard to sound,
No dame with swan- like mein glides by,
Accompanied by hawk and hound,
On her fair plafrey joyously.

Thy splendid sun has set innight-
But gentle, holier, more subdued,
Than earth's most brillian dazzling light,
Thy moonlight garden's solitude.