I stood upon the stone where ELA lay, <br />The widowed founder of these ancient walls, <br />Where fancy still on meek devotion calls, <br />Marking the ivied arch, and turret gray-- <br />For her soul's rest--eternal rest--to pray; <br />Where visionary nuns yet seem to tread, <br />A pale dim troop, the cloisters of the dead, <br />Though twice three hundred years have flown away! <br />But when, with silent step and pensive mien, <br />In weeds, as mourning for her sisters gone, <br />The mistress of this lone monastic scene <br />Came; and I heard her voice's tender tone, <br />I said, Though centuries have rolled between, <br />One gentle, beauteous nun is left, on earth, alone.<br /><br />William Lisle Bowles<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/lacock-nunnery/
