Leopards on the gable-ends, <br />Leopards on the painted stair, <br />Stiff the blazoned shield they bear, <br />Or and gules, a bend of vair, <br />Leopards on the gable-ends, <br />Leopards everywhere. <br /> <br />Guard and vigil in the night <br />While the ancient house is sleeping <br />They three hundred years are keeping, <br />Nightly from their stations leaping, <br />Shadows black in moonlight bright, <br />Roof to gable creeping. <br /> <br />Rigid when the day returns, <br />Up aloft in sun or rain <br />Leopards at their posts again <br />Watch the shifting pageant's train; <br />And their jewelled colour burns <br />In the window-pane. <br /> <br />Often on the painted stair, <br />As I passed abstractedly, <br />Velvet footsteps, two and three, <br />Padded gravely after me. <br />- There was nothing, nothing there, <br />Nothing there to see.<br /><br />Victoria Sackville-West<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/leopards-at-knole/
