Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/79

 . 9, 1864.]

of Padua duly came, A grave wise man with a dark pale face, He sat him down with a pondering brow, And rule and compass to plan and trace Each door and window, and terrace and wall, And the tower that should rise to crown them all.

Ha! many a summer sunrise found Wise John at his great and patient toil, At his squares, and circles, and legends, and lines, And many a night he burnt the oil: Till the house with its pillar’d porch began To slowly grow in the brain of that man.

Long lines of sunny southern wall, With mullioned windows, row on row, And balustrades and parapets, Where the western wind should wildly blow; And cresting all the vanes, to burn, And glisten over miles of fern.