Inscription On A Fountain

"Gallery of sacred pictures manifold,     A minster rich in holy effigies,     And bearing on entablature and frieze     The hieroglyphic oracle"

"Through the long hall the shuttered windows shed     A dubious light on every upturned head;     On locks like those of Absalom the fair,     O"

"At the unveiling of his statue.     Among their graven shapes to whom     Thy civic wreaths belong,     O city of his love, make room     F"

"Thrice welcome from the Land of Flowers     And golden-fruited orange bowers     To this sweet, green-turfed June of ours!     To her who, in o"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"