Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SIC TRANSIT...., by MICHAEL T. H. SADLER Poet's Biography First Line: The night is closing in with rain Last Line: To mourn the death of mantua. Subject(s): Oxford University | ||||||||
THE night is closing in with rain And long, low clouds droop drowsily Above the meadows by the way. Pale spaces of grey water lie Like sightless eyes along the plain; The rushes turn from green to grey; But through the debris of the day I hear no sound from Mantua. The ruined causeway to the town Runs past a little gatehouse, past A crumbling arch of moss-flecked stone To the huge castle, blind and vast, Remembering as it broods alone How Lombards saw Gonzaga frown In the great days of their renown, The mighty days of Mantua. When horsemen clattered in the square And every loggia was gay With beauty and the glint of war; When music trembled on the air And wandering poets from afar Sang songs of love and proud array, And the rich blue Italian day Hung languid over Mantua. Behind the fortress and its pride The present lies -- a horrid maze Of empty echoing courts. The grass Among the cobbles far and wide Is littered with old boots -- a mass Of garbage where in ancient days Men flashed defiance through the haze Across the marsh from Mantua. The gleaming splendour is no more; Blind revolution has subdued The careless brilliance. In its place A strangled modern township, nude Amid the tattered pomp of yore, Tries to forget in pride of race The triumphs of its vanished grace -- Poor, weary, ghost of Mantua. And all the palaces are dead, And all the churches cold and stark, And in the streets men hurry by And stumble in the clammy dark. With all the glory, life has fled And left the fevered shell to die; The hateful marsh remain -- and I -- To mourn the death of Mantua. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHRIST CHURCH MEADOWS, OXFORD by DONALD HALL OXFORD, THIRTY YEARS AFTER by JOHN UPDIKE THE SCHOLAR GIPSY by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE SPIRES OF OXFORD by WINIFRED MARY LETTS THE TALENTED MAN by WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED SONNET: ON HAVING DINED AT TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD by JOHN CODRINGTON BAMPFYLDE THE BALLAD OF MY FRIEND by J. D. BEAZLEY LETTER TO B.W. PROCTOR, ESQ., FROM OXFORD; MAY, 1825 by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES HYSSOP by MICHAEL T. H. SADLER |
|