To-day’s house makes to-morrow’s road; <br />I knew these heaps of stone <br />When they were walls of grace and might, <br />The country’s honour, art’s delight <br />That over fountain’d silence show’d <br />Fame’s final bastion. <br />Inheritance has found fresh work, <br />Disunion union breeds; <br />Beauty the strong, its difference lost, <br />Has matter fit for flood and frost. <br />Here’s the true blood that will not shirk <br />Life’s new-commanding needs. <br />With curious costly zeal, O man, <br />Raise orrery and ode; <br />How shines your tower, the only one <br />Of that especial site and stone! <br />And even the dream’s confusion can <br />Sustain to-morrow’s road.<br /><br />Edmund Blunden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-survival/
