THE SISTER CITIES OF THE THAMES.
DRAW back the dusky curtain of the Past,
And cast a retrospective glance with me
O'er the twin cities, London, Westminster,
And intermediate hamlets, which are now
Blent in one overgrown Metropolis.
Pause, and survey them as they once were seen,
In days of old-days never to return-
When royal Saxon monarchs founded first
Their pleasant palace by the silvery Thames,
And Thorney Island saw a second time
The stately Abbey, in her wild morass,
Uprear its massy fabric, destined yet
To third revival, in more glorious form,
By that quaint, much-abused Plantagenet.*
Who made the western minster what we see,
Unmatched memorial of his life and reign,
Which hath for many a century survived
The blood-bought conquests of his warlike son,
And every proud achievement of his race;
Yea, all the changes those six centuries
Have wrought in this o'ercrowded wilderness.
Sweet sylvan names, as if in mockery,
Cleave to the noisome, pestilential haunts
Of crime, and its attendant, squalid want.
Field lane and Saffron hill, where grew of
The autumn crocus in its purple pride,
Freshly and free, without the city walls.
Swart labyrinths of horror! who may dare,
Even in thought, to analyze the change?
The lane of Rosemary retaineth now
No savour of the fragrant herb of grace,
Which furnished posies to adorn the bier
When youth and beauty, in their purity,
Were borne to virgin graves bedecked with flowers.
There was a garden once on Holborn hill,
Where Ely's bishop grew good strawberries,
In the fifth Edward's reign (as Shakespere tells)
Which that sore-bullied prelate, Doctor Cox,
To calm the ireful wrath of maiden queen,
And save his threatened rochette, did resign
To greedy Hatton, after long debate;
Yet still insisted on his privilege
To take a floral quit-rent, roses red,
Full twenty bushels gathered ere o'erblown,
In Ely-place, his see's fair appanage.
Who dreams of roses in its purlieus now?
Where is the line of summer palaces
That graced the Strand? their gay parterres beset
With daffodils, and pinks, and jessamines,
Which garlanded old Thames, from fair Whitehall
Down to the nether Temple, in the days
Of our proud Tudor monarchs and their peers.
Those stately terraces now slope adown
In steep and narrow streets of merchandize
To the black busy wharf.
Would never recognise the sites where she
Feasted with Essex, and held councils grave,
At Burleigh-house, with her sage minister
And his small wily son; from whom the names
Of Cecil and of Salisbury streets derived,
Defining still the ancient boundary
Of that historic ground, their fair domain.
Bridewell, the vagrant's penal home, was once
A stately palace, where our monarchs held
Blithe revels with their courts at festive times,
Or with their royal queens, at Lenten-tide,
Went daily forth to hear black friars sing
Matins and vespers song, and duly paid
Their Easter offerings at Powle's ancient fane.
Sometimes it liked them at the pulpit cross,
Among their lowly lieges, to attend,
And take their station, on the Sabbath noon,
To hear the Boanerges of the day,
Who preached, beneath the canopy of heaven,
With stormy eloquence, to eager crowds-
His theme no abstract dry philosophy,
Dull doctrine of the schools, or dogma nice,
For subtle casuists to define, and half
Disprove in proving, but truths practical
Which those who run might clearly comprehend,
And stand excuseless for their wanderings,
After the faithful shepherd had proclaimed
God's judgments against sin, their need to strive
For his restraining grace, by frequent prayer;
And keep themselves unspotted from the world,
Amidst the strong temptations which beset
Man's soul in its terrestrial pilgrimage.
Where is the cross at Charing, fondly raised
By our first Edward, in his love and grief,
To consecrate to holiest use the spot
Where rested in its progress to the tomb,
The bier of his Castilian Eleanore?
Charing and murky Bloomsbury had then
Green lawns and fruitful orchards, where men sought
For sabbath quiet after work-day toils.
Blithe children gathered daisies in the fields
Of Martin and St. Giles, the people's parks;
And city prentices braced quivers on,
And fettled yew-tree boughs, to try their skill
In feats of archery at Lambeth Butts,
At Easter and gay Whitsun holidays,
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