Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/236

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232
REMOVAL OF AN ANCIENT MANSION.

All are vanished, all have fled,
Save the memories of the dead,
These, with added strength adhere
To the hearts that year by year
Feebler beat, and fainter glow,
Till they rest in turf below,
Till their place on earth shall be
Blotted out, old dome, like thee.

Other fanes, 'neath favoring skies,
(Blessings on them!) here may rise,
Other groups, by hope be led,
(Blessings on them!) here to tread,
Yet of thee, their children fair
Nothing wot, and nothing care;
So a form that soon must be
Numbered with the past like thee,
Rests with pilgrim-staff awhile,
On thy wreck, deserted pile,
And the dust that once was thine,
Garners for affection's shrine.




The mansion that gave a subject to the foregoing lines, was erected in 1733, by the Rev. Daniel Wadsworth, the pastor of the first congregational church in Hartford, Connecticut. It was connected with both the ecclesiastical and civil history of early times; being, while the residence of his son, Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, the scene of frequent consultations between