WRITTEN AT SILCHESTER,

THE ANCIENT CALLEVA:

A celebrated Station and City, on the great Roman Road from the walls of which, covered with trees, yet

Bath to London;

remain nearly entire.

BY THE REV. W. LISLE BOWLES.

THE wild pear whispers, and the ivy crawls,
Along the circuit of thine ancient walls,
Lone city of the dead !—and near this mound,
The buried coins of mighty men are found,-
Silent remains of Cæsars and of kings,
Soldiers of whose renown the world yet rings,
In its sad story!These have had their day
Of glory, and are passed-like sounds-away!

*

And such their fame !-while we the spot behold,
And muse upon the tale that time has told,

We ask, where are they?-they whose clarion

brayed,

Whose chariot glided, and whose war-horse neighed ;

* The Amphitheatre.

Whose cohorts hastened o'er the echoing way,
Whose eagles glittered to the orient ray!

-Ask of this fragment, reared by Roman hands,
That, now, a lone and broken column stands !
Ask of that Road-whose track alone remains--
That swept, of old, o'er mountains, downs, and
plains;

And, still, along the silent champain leads,—
Where are its noise of cars and tramp of steeds!
Ask of the dead!-and silence will reply,

66 Go, seek them in the grave of mortal vanity!"

Is this a Roman veteran ?- look again,-
It is a British soldier, who, in Spain,

At Albuera's glorious fight, has bled;

He, too, has spurred his charger o'er the dead!
-Desolate, now-friendless and desolate,

Let him the tale of war and home relate.

His wife (and Gainsborough such a form and mien
Would paint, in harmony with such a scene,)—
With pensive aspect-yet demeanour blaud,
—A tottering infant guided by her hand—
Spoke of her own green Erin, while her child,
Amid the scene of ancient glory, smiled,

As spring's first flower smiles from a monument
Of other years, by time and ruin rent!

Lone city of the dead! thy pride is past,
Thy temples sunk-as at the whirldwind's blast!

Silent-all silent, where the mingled cries

Of gathered myriads rent the purple skies!

Here where the summer breezes wave the wood-

The stern and silent gladiator stood,

And listened to the shouts that hailed his gushing

blood!

And, on this wooded mount,-that oft, of yore,

Hath echoed to the Lybian lion's roar,

The ear scarce catches, from the shady glen,

The small pipe of a solitary wren!

THE LAST WISH.

Go to the forest shade;

Seek thou the well-known glade Where, heavy with sweet dew, the violets lie, Gleaming through moss-tufts deep,

Like dark eyes filled with sleep,

And bathed in hues of summer's midnight sky.

Bring me their buds, to shed

Around my dying bed,

A breath of May, and of the wood's repose;

For I, in sooth, depart

With a reluctant heart,

That fain would linger where the bright sun glows.

Fain would I stay with thee,

Alas! this must not be ;

Yet bring me still the gifts of happier hours!

Go where the fountain's breast

Catches, in glassy rest,

The dim green light that pours through laurel bowers.

I know how softly bright,

Steeped in that tender light,

The water-lilies tremble there, e'en now;

Go to the pure stream's edge,

And, from its whispering sedge,

Bring me those flowers, to cool my fevered brow.

Track thou the antique maze

Of the rich garden, to its grassy mound ;
There is a lone white rose,

Shedding, in sudden snows,

Its faint leaves o'er the emerald turf around!

Well know'st thou that fair tree!

-A murmur of the bee

Dwells, ever, in the honied lime above;
Bring me one pearly flower,

Of all its clustering shower,

For, on that spot we first revealed our love!

Gather one woodbine bough,

Then, from the lattice low

Of the bowered cottage which I bade thee mark,
When, by the hamlet, last,

Through dim wood-lanes, we passed,

Where dews were glancing to the glow-worm's spark.

Haste! to my pillow bear

Those fragrant things, and fair;—

My hand no more may bind them up at eve;