Poems By Richard Chenevix Trench: New ed |
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 | Poems |  |
These things were at a distance, but more near
And at our feet signs of the tide of life,
That once was here, and now had ebbed away—
Pavements entire, without one stone displaced,
Where yet there had not rolled a chariot wheel
For many hundred years; rich cornices,
Elaborate friezes of rare workmanship,
And broken shafts of columns, that along
This highway side lay prone; vaults that were rooms
And hollowed from the turf, and cased in stone,
Seats and gradations of a theatre,
Which, emptied of its population now,
Shall never be refilled: and all these things,
Memorials of the busy life of man,
Or of his ample means for pomp and pride,
Scattered among the solitary hills,
And lying open to the sun and showers,
And only visited at intervals
By wandering herds, or pilgrims like ourselves
From distant lands; with now no signs of life,
Save where the goldfinch built his shallow nest
'Mid the low bushes, or where timidly
The rapid lizard glanced between the stones—
All saying that the fashion of this world
Passes away: that not Philosophy
Nor Eloquence can guard their dearest haunts
From the rude touch of desecrating time.
What marvel, when the very fanes of God,
The visible temples of the Holy One,
Claim no exemption from the general doom,
But lie in ruinous heaps; when nothing stands,
Nor may endure to the end, except alone
The spiritual temple built with living stones?
And at our feet signs of the tide of life,
That once was here, and now had ebbed away—
Pavements entire, without one stone displaced,
Where yet there had not rolled a chariot wheel
For many hundred years; rich cornices,
Elaborate friezes of rare workmanship,
And broken shafts of columns, that along
This highway side lay prone; vaults that were rooms
And hollowed from the turf, and cased in stone,
Seats and gradations of a theatre,
Which, emptied of its population now,
Shall never be refilled: and all these things,
Memorials of the busy life of man,
Or of his ample means for pomp and pride,
Scattered among the solitary hills,
And lying open to the sun and showers,
And only visited at intervals
By wandering herds, or pilgrims like ourselves
74
Save where the goldfinch built his shallow nest
'Mid the low bushes, or where timidly
The rapid lizard glanced between the stones—
All saying that the fashion of this world
Passes away: that not Philosophy
Nor Eloquence can guard their dearest haunts
From the rude touch of desecrating time.
What marvel, when the very fanes of God,
The visible temples of the Holy One,
Claim no exemption from the general doom,
But lie in ruinous heaps; when nothing stands,
Nor may endure to the end, except alone
The spiritual temple built with living stones?
| Poems | |