ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE BY FIRE, On the Night of January 10, 1838. “A heap of dust alone remains of thee.”

Yon belfry clock, that struck the hour, has ceased its wonted chime, While points[B] the hand the fatal hour that closed its note of time: The fatal hour, when lurid flame the noble fabric razed, And threw a glare o’er heav’n’s high vault, as fierce it upward blazed. What fearful desolation reigns where yon piazza rose, Nor busy tread of merchants more awakes its deep repose; Some weeping Marius there might sit and mourn thy fallen stone, Where ruin marks, with silence dread, thy corridors o’erthrown! Thou proud Exchange, alas, art fall’n; thy statues, rais’d to kings— Thy Tudors, Stuarts, Brunswick’s line, are dust, becrumbled things! A heap of marble relics now, where late, in proud array, They graced thy famed quadrangle, crowned in regal vesture’s sway! Thy founder’s[C] statue rears its head amid the scatter’d heap, And had the marble life, it might amid the ruin weep; While undisturb’d still stands erect the Second Charles[D] alone, Who, where yon centre pillar rests, first laid thy structure’s stone. Thy well-worn pavement echoes not with hasty footsteps’ tread Of merchants met, of ev’ry clime, by eager traffic led; Deserted now thy crowded walks, by Frank, Gaul, Turk, and Jew, And Muscovite, and Hollander, and Indian’s swarthy hue! Th’ accustom’d bell gives tongue no more from out its iron throat, To summon groups of barterers, with loud and stunning note, To hasten from the Babel scene ere massy gates they close, And leave anon the echoing roof to stillness and repose. Farewell, thou once fam’d edifice! whose grandeur now is flown; We mourn thy drear deserted walls, thy sceptred kings o’erthrown; Thy mournful dirge was chimed[E] by thee, upon that fatal night, When thou, a burning, blazing pile, fell on the sick’ning sight!