Louise Imogen Guiney (Луиза Имоджен Гвини)
Athassel Abbey
Folly and Time have fashioned Of thee a songless reed; O not-of-earth-impassioned! Thy music’s mute indeed. Red from the chantry crannies The orchids burn and swing, And where the arch began is Rest for a raven’s wing; And up the dinted column Quick tails of squirrels wave, And black, prodigious, solemn, A forest fills the nave. Still faith fuller, still faster, To ruin give thy heart: Perfect before the Master Aye as thou wert, thou art. But I am wind that passes In ignorance and tears, Uplifted from the grasses, Blown to the void of years, Blown to the void, yet sighing In thee to merge and cease, Last breath of beauty’s dying, Of sanctity, of peace! Though use nor place forever Unto my soul befall, By no belovèd river Set in a saintly wall, Do thou by builders given Speech of the dumb to be, Beneath thine open heaven, Athassel! pray for me.
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