Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems

VI.

John Ford

Algernon Charles Swinburne


HEW hard the marble from the mountain’s heart
    Where hardest night holds fast in iron gloom
    Gems brighter than an April dawn in bloom,
That his Memnoniah likeness thence may start
Revealed, whose hand with high funereal art
    Carved night, and chiselled shadow: be the tomb
    That speaks him famous graven with signs of doom
Intrenched inevitably in lines athwart,
As on some thunder-blasted Titan’s brow
    His record of rebellion. Not the day
        Shall strike forth music from so stern a chord,
Touching this marble: darkness, none knows how,
    And stars impenetrable of midnight, may.
        So locms the likeness of thy soul, John Ford.


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