Survival

The knell that dooms the voiceless and obscure Stills Memnon’s music with its ghostly chime; Strength is as weakness in the clasp of Time, And for the things that were there is no cure. The vineyard with its fair investiture, The mountain summit with its hoary rime, The throne of Cæsar, Cheops’ tomb sublime, Alike decay, and only dreams endure. Dreams for Assyria her worship won, And India is hallowed by her dreams; The Sphinx with deathless visage views the race That like the lotus of a summer seems; And, rudderless, immortally sails on The wingëd Victory of Samothrace.

Collection: 
English
Florence Earle Coates

More from Poet

  • Songs

    The world IS MINE FOR me the jasmine buds unfold And silver daisies star the lea, The crocus hoards the sunset gold, And the wild rose breathes for me. I feel the sap through the bough returning, I share the skylark’s transport fine, I know the fountain’s way ward yearning; I...

  • Tennyson

    How beautiful to live as thou didst live! How beautiful to die as thou didst die,— In moonlight of the night, without a sigh, At rest in all the best that love could give! How excellent to bear into old age The poet’s ardor and the heart of youth,— To keep to the last sleep the vow of...

  • India

    Silent amidst unbroken silence deep Of dateless years, in loneliness supreme, She pondered patiently one mighty theme, And let the hours, uncounted, by her creep The motionless Himalayas, the broad sweep Of glacial cataracts, great Ganges’ stream,— All these to her were but as things that seem,...

  • Survival

    The knell that dooms the voiceless and obscure Stills Memnon’s music with its ghostly chime; Strength is as weakness in the clasp of Time, And for the things that were there is no cure. The vineyard with its fair investiture, The mountain summit with its hoary rime, The throne of Cæsar, Cheops’...

  • Perdita

    she dances, And I seem to be In primrose vales of Sicily, Beside the streams once looked upon By Thyrsis and by Corydon: The sunlight laughs as she advances, Shyly the zephyrs kiss her hair, And she seems to me as the wood-fawn, free, And as the wild rose, fair. Dance...