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William Allingham - Abbey Assaroe
Work rating: Medium

Gray, gray is Abbey Assaroe, by Belashanny town, 
It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; 
The carven-stones lie scatter`d in briar and nettle-bed!
The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. 
A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, 
Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; 
The boortree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow, 
And heaven itself is now the roof of Abbey Assaroe. 

It looks beyond the harbour-stream to Gulban mountain blue; 
It hears the voice of Erna`s fall - Atlantic breakers too; 
High ships go sailing past it; the sturdy clank of oars 
Brings in the salmon-boat to haul a net upon the shores; 
And this way to his home-creek, when the summer day is done, 
Slow sculls the weary fisherman across the setting sun; 
While green with corn is Sheegus Hill, his cottage white below; 
But gray at every season is Abbey Assaroe. 

There stood one day a poor old man above its broken bridge; 
He heard no running rivulet, he saw no mountain-ridge; 
He turn`d his back on Sheegus Hill, and view`d with misty sight 
The Abbey walls, the burial-ground with crosses ghostly white; 
Under a weary weight of years he bow`d upon his staff, 
Perusing in the present time the former`s epitaph; 
For, gray and wasted like the walls, a figure full of woe, 
This man was of the blood of them who founded Assaroe. 

From Derry to Bundrowas Tower, Tirconnell broad was theirs; 
Spearmen and plunder, bards and wine, and holy Abbot`s prayers; 
With chanting always in the house which they had builded high 
To God and to Saint Bernard - where at last they came to die. 
At worst, no workhouse grave for him! the ruins of his race 
Shall rest among the ruin`d stones of this their saintly place. 
The fond old man was weeping; and tremulous and slow 
Along the rough and crooked lane he crept from Assaroe.
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