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A Rejected Address
A TALE OF DRURY LANE
(After Sir Walter Scott)
'Thus he went on, stringing one extravagance upon another, in
the style his books of chivalry had taught him, and imitating, as
near as he could, their very phrase.'—Don Quixote.
(To be spoken by Mr Kemble, in a suit of the Black Prince's
Armour, borrowed from the T'ower.)
THE NIGHT
On fair Augusta's towers and trees
Flitted the silent midnight breeze,
Curling the foliage as it past,
Which from the moon-tipp'd plumage cast
A spangled light, like dancing spray,
Then re-assumed its still array;
When, as night's lamp unclouded hung,
And down its full effulgence flung,
It shed such soft and balmy power
That cot and castle, hall and bower,
And spire and dome, and turret height,
Appeared to slumber in the light.
From Henry's chapel, Rufus' hall,
To Savoy, Temple, and St Paul;
From Knightsbridge, Pancras, Camden Town,
To Redriffe, Shadwcll, Horsleydown,
No voice was heard, no eye unclosed,
But all in deepest sleep reposed.
They might have thought, who gazed around,
Amid a silence so profound,
It made the senses thrill,
That 'twas no place inhabited,
But some vast city of the dead,
All was so hushed and still.
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