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| AVON, thy rural views, thy pastures wild, | |
| The willows that o’erhang thy twilight edge, | |
| Their boughs entangling with the embattled sedge; | |
| Thy brink with watery foliage quaintly fringed, | |
| Thy surface with reflected verdure tinged, | 5 |
| Soothe me with many a pensive pleasure mild. | |
| But while I muse, that here the bard divine, | |
| Whose sacred dust yon high-arched aisles enclose | |
| Where the tall windows rise in stately rows | |
| Above the embowering shade, | 10 |
| Here first, at Fancy’s fairy-circled shrine, | |
| Of daisies pied his infant offering made; | |
| Here playful yet, in stripling years unripe, | |
| Framed of thy reeds a shrill and artless pipe,— | |
| Sudden thy beauties, Avon, all are fled, | 15 |
| As at the waving of some magic wand: | |
| An holy trance my charméd spirit wings, | |
| And awful shapes of warriors and of kings | |
| People the busy mead, | |
| Like spectres swarming to the wizard’s hall; | 20 |
| And slowly pace, and point with trembling hand | |
| The wounds ill-covered by the purple pall. | |
| Before me Pity seems to stand | |
| A weeping mourner, smote with anguish sore, | |
| To see Misfortune rend in frantic mood | 25 |
| His robe, with regal woes embroidered o’er. | |
| Pale Terror leads the visionary band, | |
| And sternly shakes his sceptre, dropping blood. | |
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