Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/345

 320 HAMPTON COURT.

And there the pampered people of the pool

Swam lazily, in gold and silver coats,

To take some dainty morsel from the hand

Of merry childhood. The old Hamburgh vine

Round its glass palace groped with monstrous arms,

And filled each nook with clusters, proud to load

The royal table. In yon tennis-court

How many a feat of strength and shout of mirth

Have held their course, since from these halls arose

The Christmas carol of old Tudor s time.

Raphael s bold pencil here with wondrous power

Survives, and many a modern artist decks

Ceiling, and wall, and staircase. But t is vain

In lays like mine, to tell what pictures say

From age to age ; for Painting may not bend

To Poesy. She, on her pedestal,

Robed with the rainbow stands, and mocks at those

Who, with a goose-quill and a drop of ink,

Are fain to take her likeness. Quaint conceits

Of him of Orange and his Stuart queen

Adorn these haunts, while frequent on the walls

Their blended names in curious love-knot twine.

Here, too, stout Cromwell stretched himself to die;

His pale lip sated with the love of power

By blood obtained.

But most of all we meet, Where er in musing reverie we tread, Wolsey, the master-spirit, who upreared This princely pile, and from a germ obscure Towered up to such o erwhelming magnitude

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