When the vexed hubbub of our world of gain <br />Roars round about me as I walk the street, <br />The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beat <br />Of Toil's incessant hammer, the fierce strain <br />Of struggle hand to hand and brain to brain, <br />Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat, <br />The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat, <br />And all at once I stand enthralled again <br />Within a marble minster over-seas. <br />I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps <br />To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps <br />A lady 'twixt two knights' stone effigies, <br />And every day in dusky glory steeps <br />Their sculptured slumber of five centuries.<br /><br />Emma Lazarus<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/st-michael-s-chapel/
