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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339818" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Watchman</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Through jewelled windows in the walls<br>The tender daylight smiles;<br>Majestic music swells and falls<br>Adown the stately aisles;<br>Shadows of carven roof and rood,<br>Of stony saints and angels, brood<br>Above the altar-glow;<br>They cannot dim the shining face<br>Of one conspicuous in his place<br>Amid the forms below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He that was once my little boy,<br>With merry voice and look,<br>My babe, that quarrelled with his toy<br>And tore his hated book;<br>But yesterday a laughing lad,<br>In his dear worldly garments clad,<br>Talking of college wins,<br>Wickets, and bumping boats, and goals,<br>And not of shepherd and lost souls -<br>His sermons and their sins.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The same, he kneels there, pale and awed,<br>In cloud of prayer and hymn,<br>And we are to behold our Lord<br>Made manifest in him;<br>To sit, his pupils, and be taught,<br>Who knows not what the years have brought<br>To mothers and to men;<br>To take him for our heaven-sent guide<br>On seas he never voyaged - wide<br>And wild beyond his ken.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With all the lore of schools, and none<br>Of stern and suffering life,<br>A child with wooden sword and gun,<br>Unarmed for vital strife;<br>His mind a bud of spring, unblown,<br>Its flowering shape as yet unknown,<br>Its fruit awaiting birth -<br>A seedling of a thousand strains,<br>A parasite of dead men's brains,<br>Though sprung from living earth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There, in his proud belief, he stands,<br>This simple boy of mine,<br>Transformed by necromantic hands<br>To something half divine -<br>All in a moment, in a breath,<br>An oracle of life and death,<br>A judge above us all!<br>What spell is this that has him fast,<br>When age of miracle is past,<br>And past beyond recall?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O knight of dreams, in fairy mail!<br>If for his sake I pray,<br>It is that fairy arms may fail<br>And tough steel win the day -<br>Aye, though his dear heart take the thrust,<br>And he be trampled in the dust.<br>But mother fears forbode<br>(May God have mercy and forefend!)<br>A tamer journey and an end<br>Upon an easier road.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A long fulfilling of the vow<br>Within the vow he spake -<br>To close the gates of knowledge now,<br>And no more dare to take<br>The broad highways of marching thought<br>By his unfettered brothers sought,<br>Who follow every clue<br>On every line, where'er it leads,<br>Heedless of heresies or creeds,<br>To find the Right and True.<br>The mother-love, so apt for woe,<br>Visions the joyless track<br>Where the belovèd feet may go<br>And nevermore come back;<br>The boy become a thinking man,<br>That has outgrown the changeless plan<br>Once fitted to his shape;<br>The traveller, confident, serene,<br>Caught in an ambush unforeseen,<br>Whence there is no escape.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Struggling a little - overborne -<br>Perplexed - persuaded - spent<br>With dim self-pity and self-scorn<br>Supine in discontent.<br>No - no escape, by any arts,<br>Save through a score of bleeding hearts -<br>A stair too steep to climb;<br>Wherefore be wise and hide the chains,<br>Drug conscience, with its pangs and pains.<br>Give peace, Lord, in our time!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O waste of precious force and fire!<br>The sacred passion pales.<br>The soaring pinions droop and tire.<br>Our standard-bearer fails<br>To keep his battle-flag aloft;<br>The strong young arm is slack and soft;<br>The eager feet are slow;<br>The shining mail is dulled with rust<br>Of contact with mediaeval dust,<br>And will not bear a blow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And under harness so decayed,<br>What ravage unrevealed?<br>What moral textures soiled and frayed<br>And moral sores unhealed?<br>He must not know that dares not tell.<br>Hush! It is nothing. All is well.<br>Peace in our time, O Lord!<br>And leave the fighting for the heirs.<br>The blood of sacrifice be theirs<br>Who cannot shirk the sword.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O boy of mine, that played the game,<br>And never learned to cheat,<br>Nor knew such word or thought as shame<br>In victory or defeat!<br>Will he be found, when he grows old,<br>Passing off spurious coin for gold,<br>Selling dry husks for grain -<br>The pottage of the Esau's bowl<br>That bought the birthright of a soul<br>His all-sufficient gain?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The image and the robes of what<br>He seems to serve and seek<br>But veils - although he knows it not -<br>On Mammon's brazen cheek;<br>His bishop's smile, his patron's nod,<br>The homage of his flock, his god;<br>His sensuous worship drest<br>In forms and colours rich and rare -<br>The spirit's sanctuary bare -<br>Heart emptily at rest . . . . . .</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let organ music swell and peal,<br>And priests and people pray;<br>Let those who can at altar kneel -<br>I have no heart to stay.<br>I cannot bear to see it done -<br>The hands whose work has scarce begun<br>Locked in these gyves of lead -<br>The living spirit gagged and bound,<br>And tethered to one plot of ground -<br>A prisoner of the dead.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Ada+Cambridge">Ada Cambridge</a><div class=q>
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Through jewelled windows in the walls
The tender daylight smiles;
Majestic music swells and falls
Adown the stately aisles;
Shadows of carven roof and rood,
Of stony saints and angels, brood
Above the altar-glow;
They cannot dim the shining fac..."></div>
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