PART OF AN IRREGULAR [Transcriber's note: Original "IRREGULAL">[ FRAGMENT, FOUND IN A DARK PASSAGE OF THE TOWER.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The following Poem is formed on a very singular and sublime idea. A young gentleman, possessed of an uncommon genius for drawing, on visiting the Tower of London, passing one door of a singular construction, asked what apartment it led to, and expressed a desire to have it opened. The person who shewed the place shook his head, and answered, "Heaven knows what is within that door—it has been shut for ages."—This answer made small impression on the other hearers; but a very deep one on the imagination of this youth. Gracious Heaven! an apartment shut up for ages—and in the Tower!
"Ye Towers of Julius! London's lasting shame,
By many a foul and midnight murder fed."
Genius builds on a slight foundation, and rears beautiful structures on "the baseless fabric of a vision." The above transient hint dwelt on the young man's fancy, and conjured into his memory all the murders which history records to have been committed in the Tower; Henry the Sixth, the Duke of Clarence, the two young princes, sons of Edward the Fourth, Sir Thomas Overbury, &c. He supposes all their ghosts assembled in this unexplored apartment, and to these his fertile imagination has added several others. One of the spectres raises an immense pall of black velvet, and discovers the remains of a murdered royal family, whose story is lost in the lapse of time.—The gloomy wildness of these images struck my imagination so forcibly, that endeavouring to catch the fire of the youth's pencil, this Fragment was produced.
PART OF AN IRREGULAR FRAGMENT, FOUND IN A DARK PASSAGE OF THE TOWER.
I.
Rise, winds of night! relentless tempests rise!
Rush from the troubled clouds, and o'er me roll;
In this chill pause a deeper horror lies,
A wilder fear appals my shudd'ring soul.—
'Twas on this day[A], this hour accurst,
That Nature starting from repose
Heard the dire shrieks of murder burst—
From infant innocence they rose,
And shook these solemn towers!—
I shudd'ring pass that fatal room
For ages wrapt in central gloom;—
I shudd'ring pass that iron door
Which Fate perchance unlocks no more;
Death, smear'd with blood, o'er the dark portal lowers.
[A] The anniversary of the murder of Edward the Fifth, and his brother
Richard, Duke of York.