Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/Survival
For other versions of this work, see Survival (Coates).
SURVIVAL
THE knell that dooms the voiceless and obscure
Stills Memnon's music with its ghostly chime;
Strength is as weakness in the clasp of Time,
And for the things that were there is no cure.
The vineyard with its fair investiture,
The mountain summit with its hoary rime,
The throne of Cæsar, Cheops' tomb sublime,
Alike decay, and only dreams endure.
Dreams for Assyria her worship won,
And India is hallowed by her dreams;
The Sphinx with deathless visage views the race
That like the lotus of a summer seems;
And, rudderless, immortally sails on
The wingèd Victory of Samothrace.