| |
| ONCE more I greet thee, Temple Bar, | |
| That hast so often from afar | |
| Risen amid my dreams; | |
| When avalanches round me roared, | |
| Or where the Tagus, sunlit, poured | 5 |
| Its stately golden streams; | |
| |
| And where, above the torrent-bed, | |
| The Alp-peaks flushed with rosy red | |
| The sunset dyes arrayed; | |
| And where, below on lily banks, | 10 |
| The half-wild goats in straggling ranks | |
| Fed, leaped, or, butting, played; | |
| |
| And even where Niagara roared, | |
| And, like a final deluge, poured | |
| Majestically calm; | 15 |
| And where arose the Pyramid, | |
| At starry twilight almost hid, | |
| And waved the lonely palm. | |
| |
| Well I remember all thy ways, | |
| The glimmering, horny light that plays | 20 |
| Around thy window-panes; | |
| Thy posture-making kings, and she | |
| Who brought proud Spain upon his knee, | |
| And still up yonder reigns. | |
| |
| No grinning traitors’ heads on poles | 25 |
| Strike terror now to Tory souls, | |
| (Thank God, those days are altered!) | |
| A statesman now may lose his head | |
| Many a year before he ’s dead, | |
| Long ere his last word ’s faltered. | 30 |
| |
| How often, like a furnace mouth, | |
| I ’ve seen in days of summer drouth | |
| The archway flaming red | |
| With sunset crimsons fold on fold, | |
| That turned the Strand to burning gold, | 35 |
| Then darkened overhead. | |
| |
| And on how many a fairy night | |
| I ’ve seen the sprinkling silver light | |
| Transmute thy royalty; | |
| Invest thy kings with saintly gleams, | 40 |
| Crowning with halo of moonbeams | |
| Thy transient majesty. | |
| |
| Few burly Doctor Johnsons now | |
| At midnight bend their chiding brow | |
| On Boswells reeling home; | 45 |
| Nor Goldsmith curses German kings, | |
| And wishes, among other things, | |
| For Chevalier from Rome. | |
| |
| Yes, Chatterton has lingered here, | |
| Gazing upon a sky, dark, drear, | 50 |
| Holding his bated breath; | |
| While moonshine blanched the windowed arch, | |
| That howling, bitter night in March, | |
| He pondered upon death. | |
| |
| Still, luckless Chattertons, alas! | 55 |
| Through this dark gate of time will pass, | |
| Forced by their cruel star; | |
| And many Boswells, Johnson-led, | |
| Will pass through you when I am dead, | |
| To heavens that lie afar. | 60 |
| |
| Great arch of Time’s swift rolling river, | |
| It makes my blood in ague shiver, | |
| To think how fast life’s flowing; | |
| And how our little frail canoes, | |
| No bigger than a giant’s shoes, | 65 |
| Sink ere we know they ’re going. | |
| |
