The Heart-stone

 

Entombed in pitiless dark the years move slow;

God knows we're taught to die! in agony

The whirlpool mind throws up unceasingly

The same old idiocies stored far below.

The heart's a stone; could love's rose streamlets flow

From mouths of rock and sand? could music be

Found in the burial-place of memory?

— It's death by inches, as was said long ago.

 

And yet not death; for still all through the night

A strange breath passes down the tunnelled hill;

And deep within the heart-stone burns a light,

A jewel-flame; the sarcophagi hold

A million suns; the tomb-robbers' blackest skill

Could not break through and steal this sacred gold.

Page-138

---