Page:The Muse in Arms, Osborn (ed), 1917.djvu/233

Rh The old clock's tireless ticking (I have known

Into a terror grow that monotone

Incessant, threatening, like the unchanging tune,

Learnt long ago, an idiot will croon,

Or, to a murderer, dazed, the judge's slow

Announcing of his near and ultimate woe):

The soul would wake to sadness and the moan

(As of a wind when woods are overthrown)

Of our great lamentation; and the mind

Remember those who nevermore may find

This quietude, or, borne upon the blast

Of death, the frontiers of the world have passed.

So the unopened door, the empty chair,

The half-filled ledger, and the table bare

Of books and paper, sad and strange would seem

To one thus hearkening in the sunlight's gleam,

As to the priests of Rome both strange and sad

Would seem the unsought temple, when the glad

Tidings of joy found welcome and men turned

To those whom beasts had torn or flames had burned.

In truth, they seem contented to have died

In combat against Power deified,

Glad that the men of future days might see

Inviolate this beauty's sanctity.

As if this College with the gardens old

An emblem of all beauty they did hold,

Created or to be, if but the soul

Of England shall escape a cursed control.

But at the waking hour I knew that all

Was but the mind's creation at the call