Closing Address from the Hermitage

Miss Vardill

To Attica

Genius of Earth, and Air, and Sea, and Fire
Wrapp’d in thy triple veils, we know thee well,
Tho’ with a mourner’s garb and minstrel’s lyre
Thy handmaid sought the secrets of our cell,
And touch’d our grey heads with poetic spell!
Receive our homage! If the gift we bring
Amidst the riches of thy store may dwell,
Thy casket, like the vase of Chrysos’ King,
Shall touch with constant light our offering.

Perhaps our own Lymnoria’s faithless wave
Forsaken Arthur’s long-lost Love may hide;
Thy sylphs may Ora’s kindred spirit save,
While sullen Gnomes pursue the Baron’s Bride,
And seize the Shawl Clan-harold’s theft supplied:
Cold Whimpermere thy Fire-King’s aid shall crave
To swell the grape, rejoicing Bibo’s pride,
And with sublimer nectar bless the bowl
Which quells the thirsty grief of Howard’s soul.

But vain the wealth Albruno’s realms afford
To gild expiring Bertram’s joyless doom;
The brightest gems in proud Ambition’s hoard
Sink, like his dreams of bliss, in baneful gloom
As the fir’d diamond ends in poison’d fume.
Nor Hope, nor Love, the sylphs of Fancy’s sky,
Can dark Despair’s unfathom’d depths illume
Or crush the film which near her jaundic’d eye
Floats in the cave of drear Misanthropy.

Farewell! when silent in forgotten dust
The cloister’d Brethren of the valley sleep,
Still may the Sylphs, to buried friendship just,
Around our tomb of turf their vigils keep
And in soft dews our willow-garlands steep.
Thy hand alone Oblivion’s VEIL shall raise
While moss and ivy round our relics creep;
Give all we ask — thy pity and thy praise
To sorrows now no more, and friends of other days!

Arthur the Abbot
Clanharold
Fitzhoward
St Alme of Whimpermere
Betram von Bygron
Bibo di Montefiescone
Prosai Poetico vice Beauclerc the Pilgrim, expelled.