Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1120

 LAURENCE BINYON

The Statues

L ARRY a moment, happy feet, That to the sound of laughter glide! O glad ones of the evening street, Behold what forms are at your side!

You conquerors of the toilsome day Pass by with laughter, labour done; But these within their durance stay; Their travail sleeps not with the sun.

They, like dim statues without end, Their patient attitudes maintain; Your triumphing bright course attend, But from your eager wa^s abstain.

Now, if jou chafe in secret thought, A moment turn from light distress, And sec how Fate on these hath wrought, Who yet so deeply acquiesce.

Behold them, stricken, silent, weak,

The maim'd, the mute, the halt, the blind,

Condemned amid defeat to seek

The thing which they shall never find.

They haunt the shadows of your ways In masks of perishable mould Their souls a changing flesh arrays, But they are changeless from of old.

Their lips repeat an empty call, But silence wraps their thoughts around. On them, like snow, the ages fall; Time muffles all this transient sound.

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