Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TAJ MAHAL, by ANNIE ELIZABETH CHENEY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TAJ MAHAL, by                    
First Line: O beauty
Last Line: Still young and unconcerned.
Subject(s): Taj Mahal


O Beauty!
Soft sighs the wind within the echoing turrets of the Taj...
What fair, unearthly, dim mirage
On the horizon matches thee,
Or what rare dream of ecstasy
Is like thy moonlit magic—O Mahal!

Majestic—lone...
Time brushes thee with feathery wing,
While flying past the ages sing
Of life—nor can the years forget,
But chant of Love eternal yet.

The heart of Mogul merged itself in thee
Tribute divine to memory!
The Saracen yet calls unto his own,
Where swells thy perfect, gleaming dome,
The mind that glitters on and will not die
Still dwells in marble under India's sky.

In sadness oft I steal away to weep,
When rises in my soul, though buried deep,
A vision of this magic, peerless tomb,
Where laughing gems defy the shadow's gloom,
Where golden memories perfumed by the breeze,
Come floating in from sombre cypress trees;
A tomb to Love! Transcendent irony!
As if a passion so divine could die!

Beyond, the Jumna flows,
Today and yesterday a mystery.
Tomorrow still the same—While History
Marches by weighed down with written scrolls,
The Jumna onward rolls
Still young and unconcerned.





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