Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/175

Rh A broken sceptre,—a dejected race,— Dispersing like the wild returnless winds.— Say,—what should welcome her from the dread toil And bloody deeds of battle?—The big tear Of her sad outcast children,—the deep groan Of ceaseless funerals,—famine's feeble wail,— Lone widowhood,—and Philip's murmuring shade.— Perchance, thou heard'st her sighs, and thy dark walls Resounded her complaint,—thou lonely Tower!—* As through the thickets, and the pathless woods Homeless she roam'd.—Now o'er thee, Mystery spreads The brooding wing.—No gliding fox looks forth From thy dark window, mid long-sighing grass Like Morni's ruin'd tower.—No bittern screams, Nor satyrs dance there,—nor the Cormorant Unfolds her pinion on thy dizzy height Nursing her young,—as in the palaces Of desolate Babylon.—No echoed voice Of moaning blast,—or sign of restless ghost Reveals thy date.—But there, on that fair Isle, Which as a gem, proud Narragansett wears, Thou risest in thy frowning majesty A wonder, and a parable,—to mock The gazing throng.—Perchance the plundering hand Of the fierce buccaneer, thy massy walls And graceful arches rear'd;—or earlier days And beings of some unknown race beheld Thine infancy.—Light Fancy holds her sports With giddy wing upon thy time-scathed crown Peopling thy darksome chambers with strange groups And spectral shapes;—but hoar Antiquity