Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/223

In silent dignity of soul he stands
Unanswering, though reviled.
                                            Lo! at his side,
Worn out with long imprisonment, they place
The venerable Latimer. With years
His footsteps falter, but his soul is firm,
And his fixed eye, like the first martyr's, seems
To read unfolding heaven. The gazing throng,
The stake, the faggot, and the cutting sneer,
Are nought to him. Wrapped in his prison-garb,
The scorn of low malignity is he,
Whom pomp and wealth had courted, at whose voice
The pious Edward wept that childlike tear,
Which works the soul's salvation, and his sire,
Boisterous and swoln with passion, stood reproved
Like a chained lion.
                            Now the narrow space
'Twixt life and death the dial's point hath run,
And quick, with sacrilegious hand they bind
The guiltless victims.
                               But the one, who seemed
The lowest bent with age, now strongest rose
To give away his spirit joyously;
And throwing off his prison-garments stood
In fair, white robes, as on his spousal day.
Then Ridley, in whose veins the pulse beat strong
With younger life, girded himself to bear
The burning of his flesh, while Faith portrayed,
In glorious vision to his dazzled sight,