The Lonely Shrine

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Title:     The Lonely Shrine
Author: Alfred Noyes [More Titles by Noyes]

(A few months after the Milton Ter-centenary.)

I

The crowd has passed away,
Faded the feast, and most forget!
Master, we come with lowly hearts to pay
Our deeper debt.

II

High they upheld the wine,
And royally, royally drank to thee!
Loud were their plaudits. Now the lonely shrine
Accepts our knee.

III

All dark and silent now!
Master, thy few are faithful still,
And nightly hear thy brooks that warbling flow
By Siloa's hill.

 

AT NOON

(AFTER THE FRENCH OF VERLAINE)

The sky is blue above the roof,
So calm, so blue;
One rustling bough above the roof
Rocks, the noon through.

The bell-tower in the sky, aloof,
Tenderly rings!
A bird upon the bough, aloof,
Sorrows and sings.

My God, my God, and life is here
So simple and still!
Far off, the murmuring town I hear
At the wind's will....

_What hast thou done, thou, weeping there?
O quick, the truth!
What hast thou done, thou, weeping there,
With thy lost youth?_

[The end]
Alfred Noyes's poem: Lonely Shrine

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