As westward roll'd the setting day,
Fled like a golden dream away.
Then CHEPSTOW'S ruin'd fortress caught
The mind's collected store of thought,
And seem'd, with mild but jealous frown,
To promise peace, and warn us down.
Twas well; for he has much to boast,
Much still that tells of glories lost,
Though rolling years have form'd the sod,
Where once the bright-helm'd warrior trod
From tower to tower, and gaz'd around,
While all beneath him slept profound.
E'en on the walls where pac'd the brave,
High o'er his crumbling turrets wave
The rampant seedlings--Not a breath
Past through their leaves; when, still as death,
We stopp'd to watch the clouds--for night
Grew splendid with encreasing light,
Till, as time loudly told the hour,
Gleam'd the broad front of MARTEN'S TOWER[1],
[Footnote 1: Henry Marten, whose signature appears upon the death-warrant
of Charles the First, finished his days here in prison. Marten lived to
the advanced age of seventy-eight, and died by a stroke of apoplexy, which
seized him while he was at dinner, in the twentieth year of his
confinement. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church at
Chepstow. Over his ashes was placed a stone with an inscription, which
remained there until one of the succeeding vicars declaring his abhorrence
that the monument of a rebel should stand so near the altar, removed the
stone into the body of the church!]