This study of Minsden Chapel is from circa 1840. The inscription reads in part,’...its ruins are almost entirely covered with ivy and are extremely romantic in a solitary situation on the rise of a hill’.
On the Ruins of Minsden or Minzell Chapel by Wallis (c1750)
The rising sun had chased the shades of night
And each obscuring mist had fled the light,
The cooling zephyrs gently as they passed
Stirred every leaf and bent the tender grass.
Perfuming odours rose, the warblers sung,
And with their music all the valleys rung.
Charmed with the pleasing prospect of the fields,
To taste the pleasure which their beauty yields,
To breathe the sweetness of the morning air
I leave the town and to the plain repair.
A mouldering structure then appeared in view,
Around whose top the creeping ivy grew,
Once a fair church adorned with curious art,
In crumbling stone now dropping part from part;
While thorns and briars, interwoven round,
Vie with its top, and fill the desert ground,
Denying entrance to the curious eye,
To view the graves that underneath them lie.
While thus my thoughts with meditation glow,
And thus my words in mournful accents flow :—
Is this the place where numerous footsteps trod,
Where living votaries filled the House of God ;
Where the full chorus of the sounding choir
Bid one loud strain of prayer and praise aspire?
How silent now the desolated spot,
Its paths untrodden and its use forgot.
Of noxious reptiles now the haunted scene,
Hung with cold dews, and clad with baleful green
All day the redbreast mournful ditty sings;
With mournful ditties, plaintive echo rings;
And birds ill-
With boding sounds profane the hallowed shrine;
While mournful shadows stretched along the plains
Move with the wind and scare benighted swains.
Just such is man, when vig'rous youth is fled,
And feeble age has silvered o'er his head;
Downward he sinks, deserted and forlorn,
Of all he meets the pity and the scorn;
