IN MARBLE PRAYER
(CANTERBURY, 1891)
So still, so still they lie
As centuries pass by,
Their pale hands folded in imploring prayer;
They never lift their eyes
In sudden, sweet surprise;
The wandering winds stir not their heavy hair;
Forth from their close-sealed lips
Nor moan, nor laughter, slips,
Nor lightest sigh to wake the entrancèd air!
As centuries pass by,
Their pale hands folded in imploring prayer;
They never lift their eyes
In sudden, sweet surprise;
The wandering winds stir not their heavy hair;
Forth from their close-sealed lips
Nor moan, nor laughter, slips,
Nor lightest sigh to wake the entrancèd air!
Yet evermore they pray!
We creatures of a day
Live, love, and vanish from the gaze of men;
Nations arise and fall;
Oblivion's heavy pall
Hides kings and princes from all human ken,
While these in marble state,
From age to age await
The rolling thunder of the last amen!
We creatures of a day
Live, love, and vanish from the gaze of men;
Nations arise and fall;
Oblivion's heavy pall
Hides kings and princes from all human ken,
While these in marble state,
From age to age await
The rolling thunder of the last amen!
Not in dim crypts alone,
Or aisles of fretted stone,
Where high cathedral altars gleam afar;
And the red light streams down
On mitre and on crown,
Or aisles of fretted stone,
Where high cathedral altars gleam afar;
And the red light streams down
On mitre and on crown,
