Thomas Warton

On King Arthur's Round Table at Winchester

Where Venta's Norman castle still uprears
    Its rafter'd hall, that o'er the grassy foss,
    And scatter'd flinty fragments, clad in moss,
    On yonder steep in naked state appears;
High hung remains, the pride of warlike years,
    Old Arthur's Board: on the capacious round
    Some British pen has sketch'd the names renown'd,
    In marks obscure, of his immortal peers.

Though join'd by magic skill, with many a rime,
    The Druid frame, unhonour'd, falls a prey
    To the slow vengeance of the wisard Time,
And fade the British characters away;
    Yet Spenser's page, that chants in verse sublime
    Those Chiefs, shall live, unconscious of decay.