BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS

by: Lionel Johnson (1867-1902)

OMBRE and rich, the skies;

Great glooms, and starry plains.

Gently the night wind sighs;

Else a vast silence reigns.




The splendid silence clings

Around me: and around

The saddest of all kings

Crowned, and again discrowned.




Comely and calm, he rides

Hard by his own Whitehall:

Only the night wind glides:

No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.




Gone, too, his Court; and yet,

The stars his courtiers are:

Stars in their stations set;

And every wandering star.




Alone he rides, alone,

The fair and fatal king:

Dark night is all his own,

That strange and solemn thing.




Which are more full of fate:

The stars; or those sad eyes?

Which are more still and great:

Those brows; or the dark skies?




Although his whole heart yearn

In passionate tragedy:

Never was face so stern

With sweet austerity.




Vanquished in life, his death

By beauty made amends:

The passing of his breath

Won his defeated ends.




Brief life and hahpless? Nay:

Through death, life grew sublime.

Speak after sentence? Yea:

And to the end of time.




Armoured he rides, his head

Bare to the stars of doom:

He triumphs now, the dead,

Beholding London's gloom.




Our wearier spirit faints,

Vexed in the world's employ:

His soul was of the saints;

And art to him was joy.




King, tried in fires of woe!

Men hunger for thy grace:

And through the night I go,

Loving thy mournful face.




Yet when the city sleeps;

When all the cries are still:

The stars and heavenly deeps

Work out a perfect will.

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