Sympathy With Stone

Blood-red the lily, and the questing horn
Shrivelling in silence;
Crumbling the archway, tumbled stone
Trembling at violence
Of rain and frosty ruin and the crushing heel;
No tenderness,
No knowledge of that soul
Which cries in every stone, how hewn, how shaped.

We quarried you and gave you for a name
His title whom you shielded from the wolf,
Who left you standing naked, when his shame
Gave him grave's armour, left him safe
With you to take the punishment, sad stone.
How living among men, how dead alone.
You suffer, I could find my part to weep . . .
But hush, I think this dying stone's asleep.