Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OBELISK, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OBELISK, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Upon the river side
Last Line: With hope and fear.
Subject(s): Obelisks


UPON the river side,
Above the turbid stream,
Which rolls on, deep and wide;
Strange as a dream,

The obelisk defies
Its dim unnumbered years,
Facing the murky skies,
Their snows, their tears.

Three thousand years it stood
Upon the sweet, broad Nile,
And watched the gliding flood,
The blue skies smile.

And many a century more,
Where it of old would stand,
It lay half covered o'er
By the hot sand.

Now with signs graven deep,
In this our Northern Isle,
Where the skies often weep
And seldom smile,

Once more again it rears
Its dim, discrowned head,
Though all those countless years
Its life is dead.

Forgotten is the lore
Its mystic symbols keep;
Its builders evermore
Sleep their last sleep.

Amid this Northern air,
Beyond the storm-tost sea,
Where earth nor sky is fair,
Why shouldst thou be?

Standing amidst the strife,
The modern city's roar,
Memorial of a life
Dead evermore,

And of the end of all
That shows to-day so strong,
The greatness that shall fall,
After how long?

The city which to-day
Shows mightier than thy own,
Which yet shall pass away,
Like thine o'erthrown.

And thou? Where shalt thou be
When Time has ruined all,
And Faith and Empery
Together fall?

Shalt thou at last find rest
Beneath the river's flow,
And mark upon its breast
New ages grow?

Or shall some unborn race
Take thee as prize of war,
And set thee up to grace
New cities far?

Or shall our Northern frost,
Our chill and weeping skies,
Sap thee, till thou art lost
To mortal eyes?

The Past it is, the Past
Whose ghost thou comest here:
The years fleet by us fast,
The end draws near.

But while the Present flies
The far-off Past survives;
It lives, it never dies,
In newborn lives.

It lives, it never dies,
And we the outcome are
Of countless centuries
And ages far.

What if our thought might see
The Future ere it rise,
The ages that shall be,
Before our eyes;

And if incorporate,
Graven by some mystic hand,
Our hieroglyph of Fate
By thine might stand?

Nay, nay, our Future shows
Implicitly in thee;
For well the thinker knows
What was, shall be.

And though a ghost thou art,
'Tis well that thou art here
To touch each careless heart
With hope and fear.





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