OLD TRINITY CHURCH.
49
As now I gaze, my heart is stirred With music of another sphere;A low, sweet chime, which once was heard,Comes like the note of some wild bird Upon my listening ear;Recalling many a happy hour,Reviving many a withered flower,Whose bloom and beauty long have laidWithin my sad heart’s silent shade:Life's morning flowers! that bud and blow, And wither ere the sun hath kiss'dThe dew-drops from their breasts of snow, Or dried the landscape's veil of mist!O! when that sweetly-mingled chime,Stole on my ear in boyhood's time,My glad heart drank the thrilling joy, Undreaming of its future pains;As spell-bound as the Theban boyList'ning to Memnon's fabled strains!
Farewell, old fane; and though unsung By bards thy many glories fell,Though babbling fame hath never rung Thy praises on his echoing bell;Who that hath seen can e'er forget Thy gray old spire? Who that hath knelt Within thy sacred aisles, nor feltReligion's self grow sweeter yet?For though the decking hand of Time Glory to Greece's fanes hath given,That from her old heroic clime Point proudly to their native heaven:Though Rome hath many a ruined pile To speak the glory of her land,And fair by Egypt's sacred Nile Her mouldering monuments may stand;The joy that swells the gazer's heart, The pride that sparkles in his eye,When pondering on these piles, where Art
