Part 2 / Act 5 — SONNET TO DIRLETON CASTLE.
Reading edition
Time’s giant-arm has laid thy turrets low,
No more the archers crowd thy broken wall,
Thou ancient castle of the great De Vaux;
But thou art fair and mighty in thy fall,
Shrouded with ivy, like the chequer’d plaid
Of some grim warrior, resting on his shield,
Stricken, but not subdued, in battle-field,
Above the trees thou rear’st thy lofty head.
Where gilded banners stream’d, and bugles sung,
Nature, her yellow drapery has flung,
And, with the wall-flower, sheds an eastern grace
O’er the dark features of thy rugged face.
Stern Time! whose touch is sharper than the spear,
O spare these turrets ‘midst thy endless waste!
That long this tower, like monument, may grace
The lands that shine with Nisbet’s chasten’d taste,
And charm th’ admiring wanderer lingering near.
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