Page:Poems Cook.djvu/358

The granite pile is softly cracking;
 The topmost ridge is gray and hoary;
And walls that stood the siege and sacking,
 Stand like flitting ghosts of Glory.
The port-mouth'd parapet is shatter'd;
 The giant column fallen low;
The buttress—firm when cannon-batter'd—
 Shakes now when merry wind-horns blow.
Bit by bit the ruin crumbles;
 Bat and lizard there abiding;
And the callow raven tumbles,
 From the loophole of his hiding.
There Old Time is blithely sitting,
 In the finest of his dresses;
And while his wrinkled brow is knitting,
 He hides it with his Ivy tresses.
Base and battlement were strong,
 But passing moments have been stronger;
Stone and stanchion lasted long,
 But the Ivy Curl lasts longer.
No frost below, no storms above,
 The Ivy from its home can part;
It leaneth like a woman's love,
 Towards a cold, ungrateful heart.
Green when arm'd with icy spear,
 Green when deck'd with dewy pearl;
A pleasant pall to hide a bier,
 Is the glossy Ivy Curl.

It forms an honest epitaph,
 Where ashes of a nation spread;
Mark it who will, it needs no skill,
 'Tis plainly writ and plainly read.
The stately robes—the blazon'd crown—
 The scroll of right—the sword of ruth—
The triumph—shouts that strive to drown
 God's own deep whisper—tones of truth—

342