ON VIEWING THE TESSELLATED PAVEMENT LATELY DISCOVERED ON THE SITE OF THE LATE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH, THREADNEEDLE STREET.

We gaze upon yon relic of past time As on a glorious vision fair displayed, That passes in review, held up sublime, The pageantry of other years arrayed! A thousand generations leap to life; The startling millions that now slumber on, They seem to wake again to busy strife As fancy gazes on yon ancient stone! The Roman, clad in panoply of steel, And senators of once imperial Rome, Here might have traversed; here been seen to kneel The cowled monk, as ’neath some shrine or dome; Or Norman, famed for deeds of chivalry, Saxon and Briton on thy surface stood; And borderer brave, intent on revelry, Or maiden seen in glow of youthful blood, Yet tim’rous as the fawn, with lightsome tread, Fresh as the rose-blush, and as fragrant too, With flutt’ring hope, to meet her lover led On wings of love, to speak his passion true. Or yonder antique masonry restored Might to some Roman bath have led the way, Where pontiff, cardinal, or patrician lord, Here could resort at close of summer’s day! All is conjecture what thou once hath been; Thy annals lost amid the lapse of time; Yet thou in thine own garniture art seen, Fresh as in ages past, when swell’d the curfew’s chime.