Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ABIDING BURG (DEDICATION: TO THE SMALL TOWNS OF CHRISTENDOM), by WILFRED ROWLAND CHILDE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ABIDING BURG (DEDICATION: TO THE SMALL TOWNS OF CHRISTENDOM), by                    
First Line: There lived a man before the altar - flame
Last Line: Resting eternally his travelling feet.
Subject(s): Christianity; Oxford University; Towns


THERE lived a man before the altar-flame
Within the city of Mortality:
This was the high abode of crowned shame,
And round it always roared the tyrant sea.
In slavery he lived, and evermore
The masters of the shrines, that held the rods,
Dragged him perforce behind their conquering cars,
And smote his body sore.
Long time he yearned to leave his violent gods,
Desiring to behold again the stars.

But in the end there came one to him robed
In stainless samite, girded with a sword,
Whose eyes with might and tenderness were globed,
The herald of an everlasting lord,
Which said, "I call thee to the place above
All streams that moan about the darkening world,
The Abiding City of the Infinite,
Whereto all galleons move,
Wherein all sails are laid away and furled,
The Eternal House above this lesser light.

This is the bourne that ends all wayfaring:
For I am Death, to whom the keys are given,
And I shall show thee this most marvellous thing,
Crowned with the milk-white pinnacles of Heaven,
The spiritual haven of the sun,
That has been and that shall be evermore,
The city everlasting, the high place
Not ended nor begun;
And thou shalt leave this lamentable shore,
Therein to cease from weary travelling-days."

Forthwith that herald led him to a ship,
From whose high mast a flag of gold flew free.
Into the shining hold the twain did slip,
And soon the galleon rode upon the sea,
Leaving Earth's darkest harbour far behind,
And the ports of desolation: for a time,
For many years and for the shadow of years,
They sped before the wind,
And yet it seemed the moment of a rhyme,
Gone like a whisper in forgetful ears.

The sands ran down for but a little hour
Within the hour-glass as they travelled on:
It was about the lifetime of a flower,
Born with the dews and perished with the sun.
A myriad million years they sailed along
The ocean that is called Eternity,
Unnumbered star-leagues from the shores of man,
Amid that broken throng,
Folk that were weary of mortality,
Desiring the Eternal House to scan.

The white sails swelled, the golden oars swept by,
While over the vast infinite sea they came,
And low beneath the dawn they saw it lie,
The city builded from a single flame.
And up the harbour steps the voyager trod
Amid that sea-stained throng of mariners,
Passing before the throned monarch's seat,
The king whose name is God,
And in that city rid him of despairs,
Resting eternally his travelling feet.





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