St. Michael’s Chapel
When the vexed hubbub of our world of gain Roars round about me as I walk the street, The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beat Of Toil’s incessant hammer, the fierce strain Of struggle hand to hand and brain to brain, Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat, The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat, And all at once I stand enthralled again Within a marble minster over-seas. I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps A lady ’twixt two knights’ stone effigies, And every day in dusky glory steeps Their sculptured slumber of five centuries.
Emma Lazarus’s other poems:
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