The Ruined Chapel

By the shore, a plot of ground    Clips a ruined chapel round,    Buttressed with a grassy mound;      Where Day and Night and Day go by    And bring no touch of human sound.    Washing of the lonely seas,    Shaking of the guardian trees,    Piping of the salted breeze;      Day and Night and Day go by    To the endless tune of these.    Or when, as winds and waters keep    A hush more dead than any sleep,    Still morns to stiller evenings creep,      And Day and Night and Day go by;    Here the silence is most deep.    The empty ruins, lapsed again    Into Nature's wide domain,    Sow themselves with seed and grain      As Day and Night and Day go by;    And hoard June's sun and April's rain.    Here fresh funeral tears were shed;    Now the graves are also dead;    And suckers from the ash-tree spread,      While Day and Night and Day go by;    And stars move calmly overhead.