XIV.

  Haply it stood on that illustrious ground
    Where circling columns once, in sculptur’d pride,
  With fine volute or wreath’d acanthus crown’d,
    Rear’d some light roof by Anio’s plunging tide;
  There, in the brightness of the votive fane
    To rural or to vintage gods addrest,
  Those vine clad symbols of Pan’s peaceful reign
    Amidst dark pines their sacred seats possess’d.

  XV.

  Or, did it break with soft and silvery shower
    The silence of some marble solitude,
  Where Adrian, at the fire fly’s glittering hour,
    Of rumour’d worlds to come the doubts review’d? 
  Go mark his tomb!—­in that sepulchral mole
    Scowls the fell bandit:—­from its towering height
  Old Tiber’s flood reflects the girandole,
    Midst bells, and shouts, and rockets’ arrowy flight!

  XVI.

  Warwick, farewell!  Long may thy fortunes stand,
    And sires of sires hold rule within thy walls,
  Thy streaming banners to the breeze expand,
    And the heart’s griefs pass lightly o’er thy halls! 
  May happier bards, on Avon’s sedgy shore,
    Sustain on nobler lyre thy poet’s vow,
  And all thy future lords (what can they more?)
    Wear the green laurels of thy fame, as now!

    [6] These lines will form a beautiful pendant to the picturesque
        Engraving of WARWICK CASTLE, in No. 357 of the MIRROR—­as well as
        to the very interesting antiquarian description by our esteemed
        correspondent L.L.

NOTES.

One of the towers of Warwick Castle is complimented with the name of Guy’s Tower; certain ponderous armour and utensils preserved in the lodge are also attributed to Guy; nobody, in short, thinks of Guy without Warwick, or of Warwick without Guy; “Arms and the Man” ought to have been emblazoned on the castle banner; and why should I hesitate to say, that one of the most amiable of children perpetuates the heroic name within its walls?  Had this renowned adventurer been ambitious of patriarchal honours, his descendants might have extended the ancestral renown, and have furnished many a ballad of those good old times; but when the Saxon Ulysses had returned from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and made an end of Colbrand and the Dun Cow, his fancy was to take alms in disguise from his own fair lady, at his own castle gate, and then retire (tous les gouts sont respectables) to a certain hole or cave called Guy’s Cliff, where he amused himself (in the intervals of rheumatism) for the rest of his natural life in counting his beads and ruminating on his sins, which, as he was a great traveller and a hero, might have been considerable.

STANZA III.

The following interesting passage is copied from a book of ordinary occurrence, in which it is cited without stating the authority.  It is more than doubtful if any other nobleman in the kingdom, at that time or since, has projected or executed so much on his own property as the late Earl of Warwick:—­