Classic Poem

This is the rock whose colours range
From bright to dark when wet with rain,
Clear as an eye whose colours change
From smoke-grey blue to dark again:
This is the limestone base of earth
From which the best things come to birth.

And the stream shallows where its walls'
Smooth steep, which ivy pennons coat,
Down from bare earth abruptly falls,
And stands as if it stood in a moat;
Above, a sapling shows its root:
The wild stream darkens the cliff foot.

Out of this rock the stone was smashed
That gave long beauty time to grow;
The hammers rang, the chisels flashed:
It answered back with fire the blow;
And it gave gifts and guards enough
From limestone to the Parian stuff.

Water and rock by warriors wed
Here with the landscape well accord.
They built beyond Time's ambuscade;
Builders and wielders of chisel and sword.
So well they dealt with stone and stream
Eternity deals well with them.

And where the grey sky turns to white,
Failing the limits of the land's
Far-shining girdle, dark, upright,
The strong four-cornered tower stands;
And nearer, where the grey sky lowers,
The long green tunnels close on towers.

And here where Time has trampled down
The white-thorn bush and blurred the track,
Up stands the steep unblunted stone
And brings the lance-straight ladies back,
And lights again those eyes of theirs
As brave as glints from young men's spears.

For not a thing that ever grew
To win Time's heart can Time forget:
With clouds he blends the lichens' hue;
The mountains with the parapet;
And crowns that tower's denizen
Who had more than her share of men.

Wherever Life is made secure
Beauty is gardened to become
As lovely as its walls are sure
Foundations fit for Beauty's home.
And like long reaches, stilled by weirs,
So Loveliness wastes not with years.

The castle by the shallow ford:
In ruin, but the upright line
Above the tangle keeps its word:
In death the unbroken discipline!
And O, what great well-being went
To build the enduring battlement!