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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RUINED CHAPEL by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

First Line: BY THE SHORE, A PLOT OF GROUND
By the shore, a plot of ground
Clips a ruin'd chapel round,
Buttress'd with a grassy mound;
Where Day and Night and Day go by,
And bring no touch of human sound.


Washing of the lonely seas,
Shaking of the guardian trees,
Piping of the salted breeze;
Day and' Night and Day go by
To the endless tune of these.


Or when, as winds and waters keep
A hush more dead than any sleep,
Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
And Day and Night and Day go by;
Here the silence is most deep.


The empty ruins, lapsed again
Into Nature's wide domain
Sow themselves with seed ˜nd grain
As Day and Night and Day go by;
And hoard June's sun and April's rain.


Here fresh funeral tears were shed.
Now the graves are also dead' '
And suckers from the ash-tree' spread,
WhIle Day and Night and Day go by;
And stars move calmly overhead.




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