dots-menu
×

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Netley Abbey

Netley Abbey

By Nicholas Thirning Moile (1797?–1873)

(From Trial of Anne Ayliffe, for Heresy)

IN Netley Abbey,—on the neighboring isle,

The woods of Binstead shade as fair a pile,—

Where sloping meadows fringe the shores with green,

A river of the ocean rolls between,

Whose murmurs, borne on sunny winds, disport

Through oriel windows and a cloistered court;

O’er hills so fair, o’er terraces so sweet,

The sea comes twice each day to kiss their feet;—

Where sounding caverns mine the garden bowers,

Where groves intone, where many an ilex towers,

And many a fragrant breath exhales from fruits and flowers;—

And lowing herds and feathered warblers there

Make mystic concords with repose and prayer;

Mixed with the hum of apiaries near,

The mill’s far cataract, and the sea-boy’s cheer,

Whose oars beat time to litanies at noon,

Or hymns at complin by the rising moon;

Where, after chimes, each chapel echoes round

Like one aerial instrument of sound,

Some vast harmonious fabric of the Lord’s.