Poem by Louise Imogen Guiney

In a Ruin, after a Thunder-Storm

Keep of the Norman, old to flood and cloud!
Thou dost reproach me with thy sunset look,
That in our common menace, I forsook
Hope, the last fear, and stood impartial proud:
Almost, almost, while ether spake aloud,
Death, from the smoking stones, my spirit shook
Into thy hollow as leaves into a brook,
No more than they by heaven’s assassins cowed.
But now thy thousand-scarrèd steep is flecked
With the calm kisses of the light delayed,
Breathe on me better valour: to subject
My soul to greed of life, and grow afraid
Lest, ere her fight’s full term, the Architect
See downfall of the stronghold that He made.

1. When on the Marge of Evening
2. York Stairs
3. Columba and the Stork
4. Winter Boughs
5. A Friend’s Song for Simoisius

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