Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Temple Bar
By Walter Thornbury (18281876)O
That hast so often from afar
Risen amid my dreams;
When avalanches round me roared,
Or where the Tagus, sunlit, poured
Its stately golden streams;
The Alp-peaks flushed with rosy red
The sunset dyes arrayed;
And where, below on lily banks,
The half-wild goats in straggling ranks
Fed, leaped, or, butting, played;
And, like a final deluge, poured
Majestically calm;
And where arose the Pyramid,
At starry twilight almost hid,
And waved the lonely palm.
The glimmering, horny light that plays
Around thy window-panes;
Thy posture-making kings, and she
Who brought proud Spain upon his knee,
And still up yonder reigns.
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.
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,
Then darkened overhead.
I ’ve seen the sprinkling silver light
Transmute thy royalty;
Invest thy kings with saintly gleams,
Crowning with halo of moonbeams
Thy transient majesty.
At midnight bend their chiding brow
On Boswells reeling home;
Nor Goldsmith curses German kings,
And wishes, among other things,
For Chevalier from Rome.
Gazing upon a sky, dark, drear,
Holding his bated breath;
While moonshine blanched the windowed arch,
That howling, bitter night in March,
He pondered upon death.
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.
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,
Sink ere we know they ’re going.