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قراءة كتاب Lays and legends (Second Series)
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 5
His church is built for hell, not heaven!"
Then, as we gazed, the face grew clear,
And all men stood as turned to stone;
Each man beheld through dews of fear
His own face, darkened, lost, debased,
With hell's own signet stamped and traced,
And all the God in it effaced.
A crash like thunder shook the walls,
A flame like lightning shot them through:
"Fly, fly before the judgment falls,
And all the stones be fallen on you!"
And as we fled we saw bright gleams
Of fire leap out 'mid joists and beams.
Our church! Oh, love—oh, hopes—oh, dreams!
We stood without—a pallid throng—
And as the flame leaped high and higher,
Shrill winds we heard that rushed along
And fanned the transports of the fire.
The sky grew black; against the sky
The blue and scarlet flames leaped high,
And cries as of lost souls wailed by.
The church in glowing vesture stood,
The lead ran down as it were wax,
The great stones cracked and burned like wood,
A horrid chequered light and shade,
By smoke and flame alternate made,
Upon men's upturned faces played.
Down crashed the walls. Our lovely spire—
A blackened ruin—fell and lay.
The very earth about caught fire,
And flame-tongues licked along the clay.
The fire did neither stay nor spare
Till the foundations were laid bare
To the hot, sickened, smoke-filled air.
There in the sight of men it lay,
Our church that we had made so fair!
A heap of ashes white and gray,
With sparks still gleaming here and there.
The sun came out again, and shone
On all our loving work undone—
Our church destroyed, our labour gone!
Gone? Is it gone? God knows it, no!
The hands that builded built aright:
The men who loved and laboured so,
Their church is built in heaven's height!
In every stone a glittering gem,
Gold in the gold Jerusalem—
The church their love built waits for them.
LOVE IN JUNE.
Through the glowing meadows aflame
With buttercup gold I came
To the green, still heart of the wood.
A wood-pigeon cooed and cooed,
The hazel-stems grew close,
Like leaves round the heart of a rose,
Round the still, green nest that I chose.
Then I gathered the bracken that grew
In a fairy forest all round,
And I laid it in heaps on the ground
With grass and blossoms and leaves.
I gathered the summer in sheaves,
And pale, rare roses a few,
And spread out a carpet meet
For the touch of my lady's feet.
I waited; the wood was still;
Only one little brown bird
On a hazel swayed and stirred
With the impulse of his song;
And I waited, and time was long.
Then I heard a step on the grass
In the path where the others pass,
And a voice like a voice in a dream;
And I saw a glory, a gleam,
A flash of white through the green
(Her arms and her gown are white);
And the summer sighed her name
As she and the sunshine came:
O sun and blue sky and delight!
O eyes and lips of my queen!
What was done there or said
No one will ever know,
For nobody saw or heard
Save one little, brown, bright bird
Who swayed on a twig overhead,
And he will never betray;
But all who pass by that way,
As they near the spot where we lay
Among the blossoms and grass
(Though it lies out of reach, out of sight
Of the path where the world may pass),
Feel their heart and their pulse beat quick
In a measure that rhymes with the leaves and flowers,
That rhymes with the summer and sun,
With the lover to win or won,
With the wild-flower crown of delight,
The crown of love that was ours.
THE GARDEN.
My garden was lovely to see,
For all things fair,
Sweet flowers and blossoms rare,
I had planted there.
There were pinks and lilies and stocks,
Sweet gray and white stocks, and rose and rue,
And clematis white and blue,
And pansies and daisies and phlox.
And the lawn was trim, and the trees were shady,
And all things were ready to greet my lady
On the Life's-love-crowning day
When she should come
To her lover's home,
To give herself to me.
I saw the red of the roses—