Explore "Impromptu" by Thomas Gray on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Suggested by a View, in 1766, of the Seat and Ruins of a Deceased Nobleman, at Kingsgate, Kent / Old, and abandoned by each venal friend, / Here Holland formed the pious resolution / To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend / A broken character and constitution.
On this congenial spot he fixed his choice; / Earl Goodwin trembled for his neighbouring sand; / Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice, / And mariners, though shipwrecked, dread to land.
Here reign the blustering North and blighting East, / No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing; / Yet Nature could not furnish out the feast, / Art he invokes new horrors still to bring.
Here mouldering fanes and battlements arise, / Turrets and arches nodding to their fall, / Unpeopled monast'ries delude our eyes, / And mimic desolation covers all.
"Ah! " said the sighing peer, "had Bute been true, / Nor Mungo's, Rigby's, Bradshaw's friendship vain, / Far better scenes than these had blest our view, / And realised the beauties which we feign; / Purged by the sword, and purified by fire, / Then had we seen proud London's hated walls; / Owls would have hooted in St. Peter's choir, / And foxes stunk and littered in St. Paul's. "