Is double life; truth, cheaply bought,
The nurse of sense, the food of thought,
Whence judgment, ripen'd, forms, at will,
Her estimates of good or ill;
And brings contrasted scenes to view,
And weighs the _old_ rogues with the _new_;
Imperious tyrants, gone to dust,
With tyrants whom the world hath curs'd
Through modern ages. By what power
Rose the strong walls of old THE TOWER?
Deep in the valley, whose clear rill
Then stole through wilds, and wanders still
Through village shades, unstain'd with gore,
Where war-steeds bathe their hoofs no more.
Empires have fallen, armies bled,
Since yon old wall, with upright head,
Met the loud tempest; who can trace
When first the rude mass, from its base,
Stoop'd in that dreadful form? E'en thou,
JANE, with the placid silver brow,
Know'st not the day, though thou hast seen
An hundred[1] springs of cheerful green,
[Footnote 1: Jane Edwards, or as she pronounced it, _Etwarts_, a tall,
bony, upright woman, leaning both hands on the head of her stick, and in
her manners venerably impressive, was then at the age of one hundred. She
was living in 1809, then one hundred and two.]
An hundred winters' snows increase
That brook, the emblem of thy peace.
Most venerable dame! and shall
The plund'rer, in his gorgeous hall,