| |
| HOW charmed we pilgrims from the eager West, | |
| Where only life, and not its scene, is old, | |
| Beside the hearth of Chester’s inn at rest, | |
| Her ancient story to each other told! | |
| |
| The holly-wreath and dial’s moon-orbed face, | 5 |
| The Gothic tankard, crowned with beaded ale, | |
| The faded aquatint of Chevy Chace, | |
| And heirloom bible, harmonized the tale. | |
| |
| Then roamed we forth as in a wondrous dream, | |
| Whose visions truth could only half eclipse; | 10 |
| The turret shadows living phantoms seem, | |
| And mill-sluice brawl the moan of ghostly lips. | |
| |
| Night and her planet their enchantments wove, | |
| To wake the brooding spirits of the past; | |
| A Druid’s sickle glistened in the grove, | 15 |
| And Harold’s war-cry died upon the blast. | |
| |
| The floating mist that hung on Brewer’s hill, | |
| (While every heart-beat seemed a sentry’s tramp,) | |
| In tented domes and bannered folds grew still, | |
| As rose the psalm from Cromwell’s wary camp. | 20 |
| |
| From ivied tower, above the meadows sere, | |
| We watched the fray with hunted Charles of yore, | |
| When grappled Puritan and Cavalier, | |
| And sunk a traitor’s throne on Rowton moor. | |
| |
| We tracked the ramparts in the lunar gloom, | 25 |
| Knelt by the peasants at St. Mary’s shrine; | |
| With his own hermit mused at Parnell’s tomb, | |
| And breathed the cadence of his pensive line. | |
| |
| Beneath a gable mouldering and low, | |
| The pious record we could still descry, | 30 |
| Which, in the pestilence of old De Foe, | |
| Proclaimed that here death’s angel flitted by. | |
| |
| At morn the venders in the minster’s shade, | |
| With gleaming scales and plumage at their feet, | |
| Seemed figures on the canvas of Ostade, | 35 |
| Where mart and temple so benignly meet. | |
| |
| Of Holland whispered then the sullen barge, | |
| We thought of Venice by the hushed canal, | |
| And hailed each relic on time’s voiceless marge,— | |
| Sepulchral lamp and clouded lachrymal. | 40 |
| |
| The quaint arcades of traffic’s feudal range, | |
| And giant fossils of a lustier crew; | |
| The diamond casements and the moated grange, | |
| Tradition’s lapsing fantasies renew. | |
| |
| The oaken effigies of buried earls, | 45 |
| A window blazoned with armorial crest, | |
| A rusted helm, and standard’s broidered furls, | |
| Chivalric eras patiently attest. | |
| |
| Here William’s castle frowns upon the tide; | |
| There holy Werburgh keeps aerial sway, | 50 |
| To warn the minions who complacent glide, | |
| And swell ambition’s retinue to-day. | |
| |
| Once more we sought the parapet, to gaze, | |
| And mark the hoar-frost glint along the dales; | |
| Or, through the wind-cleft vistas of the haze, | 55 |
| Welcome afar the mountain-ridge of Wales. | |
| |
| Ah, what a respite from the onward surge | |
| Of life, where all is turbulent and free, | |
| To pause awhile upon the quiet verge | |
| Of olden memories, beside the Dee! | 60 |
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