WHAT memories haunt the venerable pile! It is the mighty treasury of the past, Where England garners up her glorious dead. The ancient chivalry are sleeping there -- Men who sought out the Turk in Palestine, And laid the crescent low before the cross. The sea has sent her victories: those aisles Wave with the banners of a thousand fights. There, too, are the mind's triumphs -- in those tomb? Sleep poets and philosophers, whose light Is on the heaven of our intellect. The very names inscribed on those old walls Make the place sacred. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WORLD-SOUL by RALPH WALDO EMERSON YUSSOUF by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL OZYMANDIAS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY EPITAPH by KENNETH SLADE ALLING SONG OF THE FATHERLAND by ERNST MORITZ ARNDT THE ANCIENTS by WILLIAM ROSE BENET |