Classic Poem

Sudden chasm of ghastly light, A
Yawned in the city's reeling wall,
And a long thundering through the night
Proclaimed our triumph — Tyndarum's fall.

The shrieking wind sank mute and mild;
The smothering snow clouds rolled away;
And cold — how cold! — wan moonlight smiled
Where those black ruins smouldering lay.

'Twas over — all the battle's madness,
The bursting fires, the cannons' roar,
The yells, the groans, the frenzied gladness,
The death, the danger, alarmed no more.

In plundered churches piled with dead
The heavy charger neighed for food;
The wounded soldier laid his head
'Neath roofless chambers splashed with blood.

I could not sleep: through that wild siege
My heart had fiercely burned and bounded;
The outward tumult seemed to assuage
The inward tempest it surrounded.

But dreams like this I cannot bear,
And silence whets the fang of pain;
I felt the full flood of despair
Returning to my breast again.

My couch lay in a ruined Hall,
Whose windows looked on the minster-yard,
Where chill, chill whiteness covered all —
Both stone and urn and withered sward.

The shattered glass let in the air,
And with it came a wandering moan,
A sound unutterably drear
That made me shrink to be alone.

One black yew-tree grew just below —
I thought its boughs so sad might wail;
Their ghostly fingers, flecked with snow,
Rattled against an old vault's rail.

I listened — no; 'twas life that still
Lingered in some deserted heart:
O God! what caused the shuddering shrill,
That anguished, agonising start?

An undefined, an awful dream,
A dream of what had been before;
A memory whose blighting beam
Was flitting o'er me evermore.

A frightful feeling, frenzy born —
I hurried down the dark oak stair;
I reached the door whose hinges torn
Flung streaks of moonshine here and there.

I pondered not; I drew the bar;
An icy glory caught mine eye,
From that wide heaven where every star
Stared like a dying memory;

And there the great Cathedral rose
Discrowned but most majestic so,
It looked down in serene repose
On its own realm of buried woe.