Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Salisbury

Salisbury Cathedral

By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

HERE stood the city of the dead; look round,—

Dost thou not mark a visionary band,

Druids and bards upon the summits stand,

Of the majestic and time-hallowed mound?

Hark! heard ye not at times the acclaiming word

Of harps, as when those bards, in white array,

Hailed the ascending lord of light and day!

Here o’er the clouds the first cathedral rose,

Whose prelates now in yonder fane repose,

Among the mighty of years passed away;

For there her latest seat Religion chose,

There still to heaven ascends the holy lay,

And never may those shrines in dust and silence close.