Into thirty centuries born,
At home in them all but the very last,
We meet ourselves at every turn
In the long country of the past.
There the fallen are up agam
In mortality’s second day,
There the indisputable dead,
Rise in flesh more fine than clay
And the dead selves we cas; awa
In imperfection are perfected,
And all is plain yet never found out!
Ilium burns before our eyes
For thirty centuries never put out,
And we walk the streets of Troy
And breathe in the aur its fabulous name.
The king, the courtier and the rout
Shall never perish in that flame;
Old Priam shall become a boy
For ever changed, for ever the same.
What various sights these countries show:
The horses on the roundabout
Still flying round the glittering rng
That rusted fifty years ago.
The gunboat in the little bay,
A mule, and half an age away.
Methuselah letting the years go by
While death was new and still in doubt
And only a dream the thought, “To die”.
And round a corner you may see
Man, maid and tempter under the tree:
You’d think there was no sense in death.
And nothing to remedy, nothing to blame;
The dark Enchanter is your friend.
Is it fantasy or faith
That keeps intact that marvellous show
And saves the helpless dead from harm?—
To-morrow sounds the great alarm
That puts the histories to rout;
To-morrow after to-morrow brings
Endless beginning without end.
Then on this moment set your foot,
Take your road for everywhere,
And from your roving barrier shoot
Your arrow into the empty air.
Follow at a careful pace,
Else you may wander in despair.
Gathered at your moving post
Is all that you have but memory.
This is the place of hope and fear,
And faith that comes when hope is lost.
Defeat and victory both are here.
In this place where all’s to be,
In this moment you are free,
And bound to all. For you shall know
Before you Troy goes up in fire,
And you shall walk the Trojan streets
When home are sailed the murdering fleets,
Priam shall be a little boy,
Time shall cancel tame’s deceits,
And you shall weep for grief and joy
To see the whole world perishing
Into everlasting spring,
And over and over the opening briar.