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Poem by William Lisle Bowles


Salisbury Cathedral


HERE stood the city of the dead; look round,—
Dost thou not mark a visionary band,
Druids and bards upon the summits stand,
Of the majestic and time-hallowed mound?
Hark! heard ye not at times the acclaiming word
Of harps, as when those bards, in white array,
Hailed the ascending lord of light and day!
Here o’er the clouds the first cathedral rose,
Whose prelates now in yonder fane repose,
Among the mighty of years passed away;
For there her latest seat Religion chose,
There still to heaven ascends the holy lay,
And never may those shrines in dust and silence close.



William Lisle Bowles

Poem Theme: Cities of England

William Lisle Bowles's other poems:
  1. Greenwich Hospital
  2. Sonnet 13. O Time!
  3. Lockswell
  4. On an Unfortunate and Beautiful Woman
  5. Elegy Written at the Hot-Wells, Bristol


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