The Old Gray Wall
The Old Gray Wall
Original Text
Bliss Carman, April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics (1916; Boston: Small, Maynard, 1920), pp. 2-3. PS 8455 A7A8 Robarts Library.
1Time out of mind I have stood
2Fronting the frost and the sun,
3That the dream of the world might endure,
4And the goodly will be done.
5Did the hand of the builder guess,
6As he laid me stone by stone,
7A heart in the granite lurked,
8Patient and fond as his own?
9Lovers have leaned on me
10Under the summer moon,
11And mowers laughed in my shade
12In the harvest heat at noon.
13Children roving the fields
14With early flowers in spring,
15Old men turning to look,
16When they heard a blue-bird sing,
17Have seen me a thousand times
18Standing here in the sun,
19Yet never a moment dreamed
20Whose likeness they gazed upon.
21Ah, when will ye understand,
22Mortals who strive and plod,—
23Who rests on this old gray wall
24Lays a hand on the shoulder of God!
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme