Poems (Ford)/Ruins

For works with similar titles, see Ruins.

RUINS.

Rising from the earth's green bosom,
Scattered over every land,
Proud mementos of the glory
Of departed ages stand:
Ruins of strong feudal castles,
That have braved war's fiercest rage,
Bow their heads like stern old warriors,
Battle-scarred and crushed with age.

Ruins, too, of grand old temples,
Round whose shrines in ancient days
Priest and warrior, king and peasant
Bent the knee in prayer and praise;
Sanctified by saintly worship,
They should stand though others fall;
But the hand of the destroyer,
Time, is sweeping over all.

Sad it is to gaze upon them,—
Castle, cloister, shrine, and dome,—
And to think that earth's glories
Must at last to ruin come;
That with wrecks the passing ages
All the universe must fill;
But each day we see around us
Ruins grander, sadder still,—

Fallen columns, crumbling arches
In the temple of the soul,
That should stand in primal beauty
While unnumbered ages roll;
Glorious souls, for bliss created,
Turning from their heavenward way,
From a Father's love and mercy,
Bow them down to gods of clay.

Wrecks of minds whose soaring pinions
Ne'er should touch earth's dust and mold,
Bending from the gates of glory
Down to worship gods of gold.
Mournful as it is to witness
Shrine and palace crumbling low,
Wrecks of God's fair human temples
Are the saddest earth can show.

But as round each moldering palace
Close the sheltering ivy creeps,
So the vine of prayer, upreaching,
Still from utter ruin keeps
The soul's temple, till its fragments
By our tears be cleansed from stain,
When the Architect almighty
Shall rebuild them all again.