The Towers of Time

Under what withering leprous lightThe very grass as hair is grey,Grass in the cracks of the paven courtsOf gods we graved but yesterday.Senate, republic, empire, allWe leaned our backs on like a wallAnd blessed as strong and blamed as stolid--Can it be these that waver and fall?And what is this like a ghost returning,A dream grown strong in the strong daylight?The all-forsaken, the unforgotten,The ever-behind and out of sight.We turned our backs and our blind flesh felt itGrowing and growing, a tower in height.

Ah, not alone the evil splendourAnd not the insolent arms aloneBreak with the ramrod, stiff and brittle,The sceptre of the nordic throne;But things of manlier renownReel in the wreck of throne and crown,With tyrannous tyranny, tyrannous loyaltyTyrannous liberty, all gone down.

(There is never a crack in the ivory towerOr a hinge to groan in the house of goldOr a leaf of the rose in the wind to witherAnd she grows young as the world grows old.A Woman clothed with the sun returningto clothe the sun when the sun is cold.)

Ah, who had guessed that in a momentGreat Liberty that loosed the tribes,the Republic of the young men's battlesGrew stale and stank of old men's bribes;And where we watched her smile in powerA statue like a starry towerthe stone face sneers as in a nightmareDown on a world that worms devour.(Archaic incredible dead dawns breakingDeep in the deserts and waste and wealds,Where the dead cry aloud on Our Lady of Victories,Queen of the Eagles, aloft on the shields,And the sun is gone up on the Thundering LegionOn the roads of Rome to the Battlefields.)

Ah, who had known who had not seenHow soft and sudden on the fameOf my most noble English shipsThe sunset light of Carthage cameAnd the thing I never had dreamed could beIn the house of my fathers came to meThrough the sea-wall cloven, the cloud and dark,A voice divided, a doubtful sea.(The light is bright on the Tower of David,The evening glows with the morning starIn the skies turned back and the days returningShe walks so near who had wandered farAnd in the heart of the swords, the seven times wounded,Was never wearied as our hearts are.)

How swift as with a fall of snowNew things grow hoary with the light.We watch the wrinkles crawl like snakesOn the new image in our sight.The lines that sprang up taut and boldSag like primordial monsters old,Sink in the bas-reliers of fossilAnd the slow earth swallows them, fold on fold,But light are the feet on the hills of the morningOf the lambs that leap up to the Bride of the Sun,And swift are the birds as the butterflies flashingAnd sudden as laughter the rivulets runAnd sudden for ever as summer lightningthe light is bright on the world begun.

Thou wilt not break as we have brokenThe towers we reared to rival Thee.More true to England than the EnglishMore just to freedom than the free.O trumpet of the intolerant truthThou art more full of grace and ruthFor the hopes of th world than the world that made them,The world that murdered the loves of our youth.Thou art more kind to our dreams, Our Mother,Than the wise that wove us the dreams for shade.God if more good to the gods that mocked HimThan men are good to the gods they made.Tenderer with toys than a boy grown brutal,Breaking the puppets with which he played.

What are the flowers the garden guards notAnd how but here should dreams return?And how on hearths made cold with ruinthe wide wind-scattered ashes burn--What is the home of the heart set free,And where is the nesting of liberty,And where from the world shall the world take shelterAnd man be matter, and not with Thee?Wisdom is set in her throne of thunder,The Mirror of Justice blinds the day--Where are the towers that are not of the City,Trophies and trumpetings, where are they?Where over the maze of the world returningThe bye-ways bend to the King's highway.