Strange: how even the greatest things—
Highest towers, most majestic palaces of men—
All fall to ruin.
What once was home to heaven on earth
Now homes the birds and beasts,
Crows rending the air with raucous cries,
Profaning even the stillness with laughter.

One white dove alone nests in the western window,
Olive branch in mouth, waiting for the rains to end.

What is this but dead stone, barren earth, forsaken ground?
And yet, what gave us life but dead tree, barren earth, forsaken man?
Even the dead may live, dry bones be given life,
And crumbled walls may speak when their thought lives on,
When all they stood for still exists.
But how, when thought is gone, can even the most beautiful of buildings
Mean anything?

Are you truly dead then, Abbey?
Or does some resurrection wait for you
Beyond the dream of mortal men?
Oh, many have tried to breathe life into you,
Your hills enchanted and your singing stream,
Wrote odes to your beauty and the spirits wandering your woods—
But all in vain, or most.
Our minds have not the depth to fathom your loveliness,
Your broken, haunting song.

And yet there linger
Between the dead stones of your dying walls
Small flowers, clinging in your cracks—
Perhaps, perhaps!—
For still the sun can break the clouds,
A golden beam amid the tattered mists of Wales.

Some little life is beating yet,
`Twixt wall and wall of your most aweful frame.
Oh roofless church, your beauty is not barren!
Sleep on until your hour comes
And meantime you may quicken life in me,
And tree and stream and stone remembered be.