A broken sceptre,—a dejected race,—
Dispersing like the wild returnless winds.—
Say,—what should welcome her from the dread toil
And bloody deeds of battle?—The big tear
Of her sad outcast children,—the deep groan
Of ceaseless funerals,—famine's feeble wail,—
Lone widowhood,—and Philip's murmuring shade.—
Perchance, thou heard'st her sighs, and thy dark walls
Resounded her complaint,—thou lonely Tower!—*[1]
As through the thickets, and the pathless woods
Homeless she roam'd.—Now o'er thee, Mystery spreads
The brooding wing.—No gliding fox looks forth
From thy dark window, mid long-sighing grass
Like Morni's ruin'd tower.—No bittern screams,
Nor satyrs dance there,—nor the Cormorant
Unfolds her pinion on thy dizzy height
Nursing her young,—as in the palaces
Of desolate Babylon.—No echoed voice
Of moaning blast,—or sign of restless ghost
Reveals thy date.—But there, on that fair Isle,
Which as a gem, proud Narragansett wears,
Thou risest in thy frowning majesty
A wonder, and a parable,—to mock
The gazing throng.—Perchance the plundering hand
Of the fierce buccaneer, thy massy walls
And graceful arches rear'd;—or earlier days
And beings of some unknown race beheld
Thine infancy.—Light Fancy holds her sports
With giddy wing upon thy time-scathed crown
Peopling thy darksome chambers with strange groups
And spectral shapes;—but hoar Antiquity
- ↑ * Newport Tower.
