Cedars Of Lebanon At Warwick Castle

CEDARS of Lebanon! Labyrinths of Shade,
Making a mystery of open day;
With layers of gloom keeping the Sun at bay,
And solemn boughs which never bloom or fade.
Contemporaries of that great Crusade,
When militant Christendom leaped up one day,
Fired by the Cross, and rushing to the fray,
Poured Eastward as oracular Peter bade.

Borne hither when Christ's Sepulchre was won,
And planted by hoar Warwick's feudal walls,
You grew, o'ershadowing every rival stem.
When English woods don May's fresh coronals,
Say,--Mourn ye still lost Jerusalem,
Funeral trees--beloved of Lebanon?