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Robert Laurence Binyon - Chateau Gaillard
Work rating: Low

Shattered tower and desolated keep
 Darken; far below the river shines
 Under cliffs that round the twilight sweep,
 Rock--rough headlands on the sky`s confines
 Couch asleep.

 Silence breathes; the air colours; dewy smell
 Freshens keener from the grass; a hush
 Deepens on some distant evening bell.
 Burning out of heaven the solemn flush
 Spins a spell:

 Sharpens every shadowy edge of stone;
 Notches gaps abrupt; drains pale the light;
 Blackens gulfs of fosse, where mounds enthrone
 What were towers. The ruin to soft night
 Looms alone.

 Lo, it lives! Now like a terrible thought
 Seems it. A man`s strength, how frail beside
 Yonder strength! Could hands of flesh have wrought
 Such a thing? Mere ashes they that cried,
 They that fought,

 Where the little poppy spots with red
 Crumbling bastions; dust of centuries, all
 Those strong feet that over heaps of dead
 Leapt, and hands that furious clutched the wall,
 Breasts that bled.

 Yet a presence, yet a power is here,
 In the darkening silence slowly felt,
 Silence that is naked and is near.
 Into cloud those battle rages melt;
 But a fear

 Strikes from where these pressing stones conspire
 Toward a purpose past the strength of each,
 As a man`s deeds knit by one desire,
 As a great verse out of casual speech
 Forged in fire.

 Stones no longer, having filled their place!
 Nay, though tumbled, torn, and cast aside,
 Touched with glory Time cannot deface:
 In such wreck, Man, scarred and glorified,
 Builds his race.

 Lion--Heart, thou buildest not in vain,
 Lion--Heart, that in our own blood still
 Beatest: rent but royal over Seine
 This the embattled proud child of thy will
 Shall remain!
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