Читать книгу The Rosary of Pan - Alexander Maitland Stephen - Страница 3

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SING me a song of the shadows thrown

By the Light which shone on high

On a lonely hill in a skull-strewn land,

And the lean years passing by.

Sing me a song of the ghostly bands

Who harvest their sheaves of dead—

Of the hungry eyes of a passing age

Whence the hope of love has fled.

Sing me a song of a faith which failed,

In a rood as frail as breath—

Of a gray nun’s veil which strangled life

And the love which conquers death.

“Sweet!” we cry as the rose leaves fall,

Blown by the heedless breath

Of a wind from out of a darkling sky,

Chill as the hands of death.

“Bitter!” we moan as we place the leaves,

Faded and brown and sere,

In the folded page of the ancient book

Of memories gray and drear.

For this is the quest of a soul which dared

To stake his life for a song,

For the vagrant gleam of a star that paled

When the sun of Love waxed strong.

Who recked not of the dreams which pass

Or of battles lost or won,

Since lives as leaves from the Rose of Life

Are scattered one by one.