VISIT TO THE VENERABLE CHARLES THOMPSON
WHEN AT THE AGE OF NINETY SIX—FORMERLY SECRETARY
TO THE FIRST CONGRESS.
You 've seen, perchance, some sever'd column stand
At Athens or Palmyra, mid the gloom
Pure, prominent, majestic,—though its base
Was dark with mouldering ruins, and the dome
Which once it propp'd, had yielded to the wrath
Of pitiless ages.—Ye, perchance, have stood
What time the pale moon bathed its lonely brow
In living light, and heard the fitful winds
Shriek their wild question, wherefore that remain'd
When all beside were fallen. Thought ye not then
Of man, who lingering at the feast of life,
Perceives his heart's companions risen and gone?
Is there not grief in that deep solitude
Of lost companionship?—
—Yet one I saw,
Who in this wilderness had trod, till life,
Retreating through the bloodless veins, maintain'd
Faint stand at her last fortress.—His wan brow
Was lightly furrow'd, and his lofty form
Unbent by time, while dignified, erect,
And passionless, he made the narrow round
From couch to casement, and his eye beheld
This world of shadowy things unmoved, as one
Who was about to cast his vesture off
In weariness to sleep.—His course had been
O'er those proud billows, where the dazzling beam
Of honour shines;—but now false Memory loosed
