THE gray house from the moat around Rises four-square; two white swans glide; A falling stream's uncertain sound Is heard on every side. A home in an untroubled land, As 'twas at first it is to-day; Unchanged the hushed quadrangles stand, Through centuries past away. The drawbridge and the entrance tower Are still as in those good old days, Ere freedom baffled lawless power, Which dullards love to praise. So old, so gray, so ripe with time -- Ere the broad cedars on the grass Came from some new-discovered clime It saw the centuries pass. So old and yet so new; to-day Flowers of Japan, in gold and white, Its builders dreamt not of, make bright Its gradual decay And rounding into leafy bowers The laurustinus' bulk is spread; A tall tree bending overhead Its delicate wealth of flowers. And over every moss-grown stone A glamour of the dead is cast -- The charm of days deceased and done, The phantoms of the Past. A home, a hundred homes in one, Before our English race grew great, Before the doughty deeds were done Which fixed her glorious fate; Before the dauntless Buccaneer From Devon dared the Western seas, And drove the sullen Don in fear, And robbed his argosies; Before the White Rose and the Red, Ere Crecy proved our England's might, When scarce the Paynim learnt to dread The steel-clad Northern knight. A hundred tales of good and ill, Of love and right, of hate and wrong, The joyance and the dole which fill The treasure-house of song. The old knights with their mail were here, The dames demure with high-built hair, The grave ruffed sage, the cavalier Flaunting his lovelocks fair, The periwigged and powdered Beau, The Dame with hoops and patches brave; The generations come and go -- The cradle and the grave. Our grandsires and our granddames came; They came awhile, their times are dead, And we, the modern sir and dame, Are reigning in their stead. Unchanged the old grange stands, and will When we in turn are past and gone; The hurrying years flit by us still, Life glides unnoticed on. And what the end? No Goth or Hun Can blot the record of thy past; Shalt thou, unchanged, untroubled, last Till history be done? The peasants spared thee, the long shock Of warring Roses came not near; The Roundhead and the Cavalier, The King's head on the block, Thou hast survived. Shall peace o'erturn What banded foemen deigned to spare, In some deep hate, when all things fair In one red ruin burn? Or shall a wider faith and trust Bind all, until men recognize No good but mutual sacrifice, Nor aim but to be just? Thou liest within the net of Fate, Oh ancient England of our love! Howe'er the circling world may move. Thou art, thou hast been great! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IVY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON CHAMBER MUSIC: 14 by JAMES JOYCE WITH BEST WISHES by DOROTHY PARKER |