[Footnote A:  In Ayrshire, as I have heard, but I know of no trace of the family.  The old distich may be traced to some other county: 

  “The Allerley oak stands high, abune trees;
   When the raven croaks there, an Allerley dees.”

Such rhymes have generally something to rest upon, but I cannot associate this with any county, far less a family.]

All things are neglected, time-smitten there,
Crazy and cobwebbed, mildewed and worn,
Moth-eaten, weeviled, dusty, forlorn,
Everything owning to waning and wear;
From the baron’s hall to the lady’s bower
NEGLECT is the watchword in Allerley Tower.

There is silence within old Allerley Hall,
Save the raven without with her “croak, croak,”
And the cricket’s “click, click,” in the panels of oak,
Behind the dim arras that hangs on the wall;
So silent and sad in the midnight hour,
Yet life may still linger in Allerley Tower.

An old woman sits by a carved old bed—­
The drape of green silk, all yellow and sere,
The gold-coloured fringes dingy and drear;
And she nods and nods her silvery head,
And sometimes she looks with a half-drowsy air. 
To notice how Death may be working there.

Lord William lies there, care-worn and pale,
All his sunlight of spirit has passed away,
And left to him only that twilight of grey
Which ushers men into the long dark vale;
Fast ebbing his life, yet feeling no pain,
Save a memory working within his brain.

He had sought the world’s crowd for forty years,
But only a little relief to borrow
From the heartfelt pangs of that early sorrow
Which had drawn him away from his gay compeers,
And made him oft sigh, with a pain-begot scorn,
That into this world he ever was born.

But being brought in, as a victim, to tarry,
With him, as with all, it is how to get out
With no more of pain than you can’t go without,
Where all have original sin to carry;
But his memory brightened, as strength waxed low,
Of the grief he had borne forty years ago.

There is silence and sadness in Allerley Tower;
The taper is glimmering with murky snot,
The raven croak-croaking with rusty throat,
And the cricket click-clicking at midnight hour;
And the woman mope-moping by the bed,
Still nodding and nodding her drowsy head.

“Now bring me, old nurse, from that escritoire,
A packet tied up with a ribbon of blue;”
Ah! well, though now faded, that ribbon he knew,
Which his fingers had bound forty years before. 
He shuddered to look, yet afraid to wait,
Lest Death might render his vision too late.

That ribbon he drew in a calm despair: 
Behold now revealed to his wondering eyes
A face of all beautiful harmonies,
Set fair among ringlets of golden hair;
With eyes so blue and a smile of heaven,
Which haply some angel to her had given.