A GRAY shell with a ruined tower Whereon the wild stork sees On the Moor's arch the wind-sown flower, Within, the aged trees; Tranquil decay, and silence meet To strew round old belief, While every mellowing stone grows sweet With time's unconscious grief! Once as on Salisbury's moor I lay Where the great stones remain, I felt my very soul grow gray And sink into the plain; A solitary lark climbed up In the dark sunset sky, And, singing, filled from heaven the cup I drink of till I die. Now world-wide pours the music rare Within my listening mind; I hear the lark's song everywhere That I the gray stone find; Thy lovely Mosque, O Ephesus, Reverts to nature's plan; But dying gods bequeath to us Their deathless faith in man. I hear the song at Stonehenge heard Abolishing gray death; Again the rapture of the bird Is singing in my breath; It rises in my heart of hearts And music floods my brain -- Old Mosque, o'er thee it fluttering starts, And soars, and comes again. Ye antique trees, grow fresh and green Within the roofless nave! The song that cleaves your heaven unseen Shall nest upon my grave; And while it hovers o'er my breast Yon arch shall break to flower, And the wild stork shall cap his nest White on the mouldering tower. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MAN WITH THE HOE OUTWITTED by EDWIN MARKHAM THE LIGHT'OOD FIRE by JOHN HENRY BONER A SOLILOQUY; OCCASIONED BY THE CHIRPING OF A GRASSHOPPER by WALTER HARTE JUDGE NOT by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER ON THE BACKWARDNESS OF THE SPRING 1771 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SELF-COMMUNING by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE |