Thomas Hardy (Томас Гарди (Харди))
In St Paul’s a While Ago
Summer and winter close commune On this July afternoon As I enter chilly Paul’s, With its chasmal classic walls. – Drifts of gray illumination From the lofty fenestration Slant them down in bristling spines that spread Fan-like upon the vast dust-moted shade. Moveless here, no whit allied To the daemonian din outside, Statues stand, cadaverous, wan, Round the loiterers looking on Under the yawning dome and nave, Pondering whatnot, giddy or grave. Here a verger moves a chair, Or a red rope fixes there: – A brimming Hebe, rapt in her adorning, Brushes an Artemisia craped in mourning; Beatrice Benedick piques, coquetting; All unknowing or forgetting That strange Jew, Damascus-bound, Whose name, thereafter travelling round To this precinct of the world, Spread here like a flag unfurled: Anon inspiring architectural sages To frame this pile, writ his throughout the ages: Whence also the encircling mart Assumed his name, of him no part, And to his vision-seeing mind Charmless, blank in every kind; And whose displays, even had they called his eye, No gold or silver had been his to buy; Whose haunters, had they seen him stand On his own steps here, lift his hand In stress of eager, stammering speech, And his meaning chanced to reach, Would have proclaimed him as they passed An epilept enthusiast.
Thomas Hardy’s other poems:
931
