Rime

O scholar grey, with quiet eyes,Reading the charactered pages, brightWith one tall candle's flickering light,In a turret chamber under the skies;O scholar, learned in gramarye,Have you seen the manifold things I see?

Have you seen the forms of tracèd towersWhence clamorous voices challenge the hours:Gaunt tree-branches, pitchy blackAgainst the long, wind-driven wrackOf scurrying, shuddering clouds, that raceEver across the pale moon's face?

Have you heard the tramp of hurrying feet,There beneath, in the shadowy street,Have you heard sharp cries, and seen the flameOf silvery steel, in a perilous game,A perilous game for men to play,Hid from the searching eyes of day?

Have you heard the great awakening breath,Like trump that summons the saints from death,Of the wild, majestical wind, which blowsLoud and splendid, that each man knowsFar, O far away is the sea,Breaking, murmuring, stark and free?

All these things I hear and see,I, a scholar of gramarye:All are writ in the ancient booksClear, exactly, and he that looksFinds the night and the changing sea,The years gone by, and the years to be:(He that searches, with tireless eyesIn a turret-chamber under the skies)Passion and joy, and sorrow and laughter,Life and death, and the things thereafter.