Thro' innocent eyes at the world awond'ring Nothing spake to me more superbly Than the round bastion of Windsor's wall That warding the Castle's southern angle An old inheritor of Norman prowess Was call'd by the folk the Curfew Tow'r. Above the masonry's rugged courses A turreted clock of Caroline fashion Told time to the town in black and gold. It charmed the hearts of Henry's scholars As kingly a mentor of English story As Homer's poem is of Ilion: Nor e'er in the landscape look'd it fairer Than when we saw its white bulk halo'd In a lattice of slender scaffoldings. Month by month on the air platforms Workmen labour'd hacking and hoisting Till again the tower was stript to the sun: The old tow'r? Nay a new tow'r stood there From footing to battlemented skyline And topt with a cap the slice of a cone Archaeoligic and counterfeited The smoothest thing in all the high-street As Eton scholars to-day may see: They -- wherever else they find their wonder And feed their boyhood on Time's enchantment -- See never the Tow'r that spoke to me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO THE MEMORY OF THOMAS HOOD by BARTHOLOMEW SIMMONS SONNET: AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN: 2 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE CHRYSANTHEMUMS by AUGUSTE ANGELLIER CORRESPONDENCES by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE THE THINKER'S VISION by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE LOST LADY: SONG by WILLIAM BERKLEY |