--This palace of the poor,
Ascetic luxury, wealth too frankly shown,--
The royal robber swept
His lustful eye, and seized the prey his own.

--Ah, calm of Nature! Now thou hold'st again
Thy sweet and silent reign!
And, as our feverish years their orbit roll,
This pure and cloister'd peace
In its old healing virtue bathes the soul.

1539 is the year when the greater monasteries, amongst which Fountains in
Yorkshire held a prominent place, were confiscated and ruined by Henry
VIII.

_The tiny creeper_; Certhia Familiaris; the smallest of our birds after
the wren. It belongs to a class nearly related to the woodpecker.

_White-robed_; The colour of the Cistercian order, to which Fountains
belonged.



SIR HUGH WILLOUGHBY


1553-4

Two ships upon the steel-blue Arctic seas
When day was long and night itself was day,