Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/67

                                —Those temples bear
Proud London's mitre, and that lip which oft
Warn'd with warm eloquence a tearful throng
'Neath some Cathedral's awe-imposing arch,
Now in its deep adversity essays
The same blest theme. With brutal haste they check
The unfinish'd sentence,—they who used to crouch
To his high fortunes,—and perchance to share
His flowing charity. Smitten on the mouth,
In silent dignity of soul he stands,
Unanswering, though reviled.
                                       —Lo! at his side,
Worn out with long imprisonment, they place
The venerable Latimer. Bow'd down
With age, he totters, but his soul is firm,—
And his fix'd eye, like the first martyr's, seems
To scan the opening heavens. The gazing throng,
The stake, the faggot, and the jeering priest
Are nought to him. Wrapp'd 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
As a chain'd lion.
                                   —Now the narrow space
'Tween life and death, the dial's point hath run,—
And quick with sacrilegious hands they bind
The dedicated victims.
                                     —He who seem'd
Bent low with years, now rose erect and firm,
To give away his spirit joyously,—