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| FORLORN old tower! that lookest sadly down | |
| Upon the river glittering in the light, | |
| Upon the green leaves of the clambering woods, | |
| And o’er the wide expanse of mountain-land, | |
| How many tales thine ancient walls might tell! | 5 |
| And yet, thou silent undivulging tower, | |
| What couldst thou tell us that we do not know? | |
| The matter of all history is the same. | |
| Time in all changes can but iterate | |
| The morn and eve, the noontime and the night, | 10 |
| The spring’s fresh promise and the autumnal fruit, | |
| The leaves of summer and the winter’s snow; | |
| And human story still repeats itself,— | |
| The form may differ, but the soul remains. | |
| |
| Four hundred years ago, when thou wert built, | 15 |
| Men erred and suffered;—truth and falsehood waged | |
| One with the other their perpetual war; | |
| And justice and injustice, right and wrong, | |
| Succumbed and triumphed as they do to-day. | |
| The young heart loved with passionate earnestness, | 20 |
| The old heart scorned all follies but its own; | |
| And joy and sorrow, jealousy, revenge, | |
| Lusty ambition, skulking avarice, | |
| Patience and zeal, and persecuting rage, | |
| Pity and hope, and charity and love,— | 25 |
| All good and evil passions of the mind, | |
| Brightened or darkened, O thou mouldering wall! | |
| Through all the landscape of humanity. | |
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| Couldst thou divulge whatever thou hast seen, | |
| Thou couldst but call these spirits from the past | 30 |
| To read us lessons. Ancient tower! thy voice | |
| Need not instruct us; for we look around | |
| On highways or on byways of our life, | |
| And find no sorrow of the ancient days | |
| Unparalleled in ours; no love sublime, | 35 |
| No patient and heroic tenderness, | |
| No strong endurance in adversity, | |
| No womanly or manly grace of mind, | |
| That we could not, if every truth were known, | |
| Match with its fellow in our later days. | 40 |
| So keep, old tower, thy secrets to thyself! | |
| There ’s not a hovel in the crowded town, | |
| That could not tell us tomes of histories | |
| Of good and evil, wonderful as thine. | |
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