402

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

ST. ANTHONY'S TOWNSHIP

THE trees of the elder lands,

Give ear to the march of Time,

To his steps that are heavy and slow

In the streets of ruined cities

That were great awhile ago-
Skeletons bare to the skies
Or mummies hid in the sands,
Wasting to rubble and lime.
Ancient are they and wise;

But the gum-trees down by the creek,
Gnarled, archaic and grey,

Are even as wise as they.

They have learned in a score of years

The lore that their brethren know;

For they saw a town arise,

Arise and pass.

There are pits by the dry, dead river,
Whence the diggers won their gold,
A circle traced in the grass,

A hearthstone long a-cold,
A path none come to seek-

The trail of the pioneers

Where the sheep wind to and fro;

403

404

And the rest is a tale that is told
By voices quavering and weak

Of men grown old.

GILBERT SHELDON

SILENCE

THERE is a silence where hath been no sound,

There is a silence where no sound may be,

In the cold grave-under the deep-deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hushed-no life treads silently,

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls

Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox, or wild hyaena, calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan,
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

THOMAS HOOD

KUBLA KHAN

IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills.
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;

Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

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406

Weave a circle round him thrice, .
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

...

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

LOST LOVE

His eyes are quickened so with grief,
He can watch a grass or leaf
Every instant grow; he can
Clearly through a flint wall see,
Or watch the startled spirit flee
From the throat of a dead man.

Across two countries he can hear,
And catch your words before you speak.
The woodlouse, or the maggot's weak
Clamour rings in his sad ear;

And noise so slight it would surpass
Credence:-drinking sound of grass,
Worm talk, clashing jaws of moth
Chumbling holes in cloth:

The groan of ants who undertake

Gigantic loads for honour's sake,

Their sinews creak, their breath comes thin:

Whir of spiders when they spin,

And minute whispering, mumbling, sighs

Of idle grubs and flies.

This man is quickened so with grief,

He wanders god-like or like thief

Inside and out, below, above,

Without relief seeking lost love.

ECSTASY

I SAW a frieze on whitest marble drawn

Of boys who sought for shells along the shore,

ROBERT GRAVES

Their white feet shedding pallor in the sea,

The shallow sea, the spring-time sea of green

That faintly creamed against the cold, smooth pebbles. . .

One held a shell unto his shell-like ear

And there was music carven in his face,
His eyes half-closed, his lips just breaking open
To catch the lulling, mazy, coralline roar

Of numberless caverns filled with singing seas.

And all of them were hearkening as to singing
Of far-off voices thin and delicate,

Voices too fine for any mortal wind

To blow into the whorls of mortal ears

And yet those sounds flowed from their grave, sweet faces.

And as I looked I heard that delicate music,
And I became as grave, as calm, as still
As those carved boys. I stood upon that shore,
I felt the cool sea dream around my feet,

My eyes were staring at the far horizon.

...

WALTER J. TURNER

407

THE SEA OF DEATH

AND there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep

Like water-lilies on that motionless deep,

How beautiful! with bright unruffled hair
On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were
Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse!

And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips,
Meekly apart, as if the soul intense

Spake out in dreams of its own innocence.
So lay they garmented in torpid light,
Under the pall of a transparent night,
Like solemn apparitions lulled sublime
To everlasting rest,-and with them Time
Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face

Of a dark dial in a sunless place.