The gray walls are discolored
by damps and crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has
gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and
obscured the death's heads and other funeral emblems. The sharp
touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the
arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their
leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations
of time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its
very decay.
The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of
the cloisters, beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in the centre,
and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of
dusky splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a
bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt
pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure heaven.
As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this mingled
picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to decipher
the inscriptions on the tombstones which formed the pavement
beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures rudely
carved in relief, but nearly worn away by the footsteps of many
generations. They were the effigies of three of the early abbots;
the epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names alone remained,
having no doubt been renewed in later times (Vitalis.
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