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Sonnets of the Wingless Hours

By Eugene Lee-Hamilton
  
  

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ON THE HORSES OF ST. MARK.
  
  
  
  
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43

ON THE HORSES OF ST. MARK.

There be four brazen stallions of the breed
That Niké drove at Marathon a breast,
Who march before St. Mark's with pace repress'd,
As if her self were curbing-in their speed;
Marching as they have marched through crowd and creed
Down all Antiquity with clip-maned crest,
And through the Middle Times with broad bronze chest,
To trample down the Present like a reed.
They march towards the Future of the world,
In Time not Space; and what the path is through
Is writ in shadowy scrolls not yet unfurl'd;
And as they march, the pigeons waltz and coo
Upon their sunlit backs, when eve has curl'd
The still canals, as eve is wont to do.