 | The bird and the bell, with other poems |  |
10
XXVII.
Yet life was in thee once. Thy earlier youthWas flushed with blossoms of a heavenly bloom.
Thy blight began, when o'er God's common truth
And man's nobility thou didst assume
The dread prerogative of life and doom;
And creeds which served as swaddling-bands were bound
Like grave-clothes round the limbs laid living underground.
| The bird and the bell, with other poems | |