The Story of Constantinople

❖

William Holden Hutton

Interior of S. Sophia.
Showing the Sultan's pew and the stairs to the pulpit.

Title Page

Constantinople

The Story of the old Capital
of the Empire by William
Holden Hutton, Fellow of
S. John Baptist College, Oxford.
Illustrated by Sydney Cooper

London: J. M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House, 29 and 30 Bedford Street
Covent Garden, W.C. · · 1900

This superb successor

Of the earth's mistress, as thou vainly speakest,

Stands 'midst these ages as, on the wide ocean,

The last spared fragment of a spacious land,

That in some grand and awful ministration

Of mighty nature has engulfed been,

Doth lift aloft its dark and rocky cliffs

O'er the wild waste around, and sadly frowns

In lonely majesty.

I was the daughter of Imperial Rome,

Crowned by her Empress of the mystic east:

Most Holy Wisdom chose me for her home

Sealed me Truth's regent, and High Beauty's priest.

Lo! when fate struck with hideous flame and sword,

Far o'er the new world's life my grace was poured.