THE ROMAN WELL

I rested by a Roman well

That still with purest water fills.

The twilight like a silver bell

Failed on the wide hills.

Torn pines against that lucid sky

Let through clear rose and starlight cool.

That loveliness, too soon to die,

Trembled within the pool.

The wind went harping overhead

And plucked a sigh from every stem,

Like the thin music of the dead

In minds remembering them.

I wondered if the things of man,

Fallen in Time’s unfeatured dark,

Find somewhere in life’s vaster span

Imperishable mark.

I wondered if when Beauty dies,

And Love with Truth is put to scorn,

They make a splendour in the skies

Of everlasting morn.

And, all at once, a curlew cried

So lost and lone above the fosse,

I could have thought that Jesus died

Out there upon the cross.

Long, long by the old well I stayed,

Time’s prisoner, thrusting at the bars,

Unsoothed that night for boon displayed

Her reasonable stars.