WHY does the finger, Yellow mid the sunshine, on the minster-clock, Point at that hour? It is most horrible, Speaking of midnight in the face of day. During the very dead of night it stopp'd, Even at the moment when a hundred hearts Paused with it suddenly, to beat no more. Yet, wherefore should it run its idle round? There is no need that men should count the hours Of time, thus standing on eternity. It is a death-like image. How can I, When round me silent nature speaks of death Withstand such monitory impulses? When yet far off I thought upon the plague, Sometimes my mother's image struck my soul, In unchanged meekness and serenity, And all my fears were gone. But these green banks, With an unwonted flush of flowers o'ergrown, Brown, when I left them last, with frequent feet From morn till evening hurrying to and fro, In mournful beauty seem encompassing A still forsaken city of the dead. O unrejoicing Sabbath! not of yore Did thy sweet evenings die along the Thames Thus silently! Now every sail is furl'd, The oar hath dropt from out the rower's hand, And on thou flowest in lifeless majesty, River of a desert lately fill'd with joy! O'er all that mighty wilderness of stone The air is clear and cloudless, as at sea Above the gliding ship. All fires are dead, And not one single wreath of smoke ascends Above the stillness of the towers and spires. How idly hangs that arch magnificent Across the idle river! Not a speck Is seen to move along it. There it hangs, Still as a rainbow in the pathless sky, | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AFTER DEATH by FRANCES ISABEL PARNELL THE MOON by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON RHAPSODY by MARTIN DONISTHORPE ARMSTRONG IN THAT DAY by ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON SEA BUTTERFLIES by DON BLANDING ISAIAH: 35 by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD |