Sonnet on Visiting Barra Church-Yard

Deem not the spot unblest, though the church pile Be moulder’d to decay; three mossy stones Mark cells as hallow’d as the sculptured aisle, Where villagers repose their weary bones; The winds of heaven sigh moaning o’er their graves, Where the long grass in mournful billows waves; And when the moonlight sleeps upon yon knoll The swain will pause, and think upon his soul!— But most I love the blue-flower gleaming there, Sprung from the ashes of some village maid, Who blossom’d in life’s spring, chaste, young, and fair, Till in Death’s arms she shrunk into a shade. I’ll take a seedling from this lonely flower, To be the moralist of my summer-bower.

VERSES IN MEMORY OF DUNBAR COLLEGIATE CHURCH.

There is a Temple in ruin stands, Fashion’d by long-forgotten hands. Out upon Time! it will leave no more Of the things to come than the things before! ——What we have seen our sons shall see, Remnants of things that have pass’d away, Fragments of stone, rear’d by creatures of clay!— BYRON.