Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MOSQUE AT EPHESUS, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MOSQUE AT EPHESUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A gray shell with a ruined tower
Last Line: White on the mouldering tower.
Subject(s): Decay; Ruins; Stones; Rot; Decadence; Granite; Rocks


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.





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