Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/344

 HAMPTON COUKT. 319

Each stratum of the compact household firm, The lowest to the highest ; those who serve, Not of their lot ashamed, and those who rule Regardful of the charity which counts A life-long service, as a bond of love, Here and hereafter.

So, the wedding past,

Bright in its hallowed hopes, but not without Some touch of tender grief ; for here, below, In all her proudest temples Joy doth set Lachrymatories, and her banquet-board Hath aye some subterranean path, that tends Unto the house of tears.

And then, to break

That heavy pause, which on the heart doth fall, When what it loves departeth, forth we went, As I have said before. Well pleased we swept O er vale and common, and by that green lane Where Wandsworth boasts its nested nightingales, By lordly manor, and o er lonely heath, Whose furze and broom make glad the donkey tribe, Or neath the enormous chesntuts that o ersweep Richmond, the loved of Thames, and by the shades Of Bushy Park, a monarch s late abode, Until the gates of Hampton Court we passed, And scanned its purlieus fair. The lime and yew Stood with inwoven arms, and countless flowers Amid their garden cells of bordering turf Wrought out a rich mosaic. Here the Maze With labyrinthine lines the foot allured,

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