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

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