Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/306

Round its glass palace groped with monstrous arms,
And filled each nook with clusters, proud to load
The royal table. In yon tennis-court
How many a feat of strength and shout of mirth
Have held their course, since from these halls arose
The Christmas-carol of old Tudor's time.
Raphael's bold pencil here with wondrous power
Survives, and many a modern artist decks
Ceiling, and wall, and stair-case. But 't is vain
In lays like mine to tell what pictures say
From age to age; for Painting may not bend
To Poesy. She, on her pedestal,
Robed with the rainbow stands,—and mocks at those
Who, with a goose-quill and a drop of ink,
Are fain to take her likeness. Quaint conceits
Of him of Orange and his Stuart queen
Adorn these haunts,—while frequent on the walls
Their blended names in curious love-knot twine.
Here too stout Cromwell stretched himself to die;
His pale lip sated with the love of power
By blood obtained.
                            But most of all we meet,
Where'er in musing reverie we tread,
Wolsey,—the master-spirit, who upreared
This princely pile, and from a germ obscure
Towered up to such o'erwhelming magnitude
Of power, that monarchs felt his dampening shade
Fall on their greatness.