St. Margaret's bells, <br />Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles, <br />Sing in the storied air, <br />All rosy-and-golden, as with memories <br />Of woods at evensong, and sands and seas <br />Disconsolate for that the night is nigh. <br />O, the low, lingering lights! The large last gleam <br />(Hark! how those brazen choristers cry and call!) <br />Touching these solemn ancientries, and there, <br />The silent River ranging tide-mark high <br />And the callow, grey-faced Hospital, <br />With the strange glimmer and glamour of a dream! <br />The Sabbath peace is in the slumbrous trees, <br />And from the wistful, the fast-widowing sky <br />(Hark! how those plangent comforters call and cry!) <br />Falls as in August plots late roseleaves fall. <br />The sober Sabbath stir - <br />Leisurely voices, desultory feet! - <br />Comes from the dry, dust-coloured street, <br />Where in their summer frocks the girls go by, <br />And sweethearts lean and loiter and confer, <br />Just as they did an hundred years ago, <br />Just as an hundred years to come they will:- <br />When you and I, Dear Love, lie lost and low, <br />And sweet-throats none our welkin shall fulfil, <br />Nor any sunset fade serene and slow; <br />But, being dead, we shall not grieve to die.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/grave-9/
