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Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI by Algernon Charles Swinburne
page 27 of 145 (18%)
Witness yet that their record set stands fast, though years be as
hosts in rout,
Spent and slain; but the signs remain that beat back darkness and
cast forth doubt.

Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier
than praise dare trace,
Fair as all that the world may call most fair, save only the sea's
own face,
Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live by grace
of their own gift's grace.

Dead, their names that the night reclaims--alive, their works that
the day relumes--
Sink and stand, as in stone and sand engraven: none may behold
their tombs:
Nights and days shall record their praise while here this flower of
their grafting blooms.

Flower more fair than the sun-thrilled air bids laugh and lighten
and wax and rise,
Fruit more bright than the fervent light sustains with strength
from the kindled skies,
Flower and fruit that the deathless root of man's love rears though
the man's name dies.

Stately stands it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar
and near,
Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the
seaboard here;
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