The Land of Learning

William Burford

Before noon, savage masks,
Shadows of lanterns on the Colleges,
Of wrought lamps upraised, on the fagades-

Specters of time like enormous cacti,
Like the great blind cast there
Where giant letters their histories spell,
Crowns of thorn spiked at the doors:

Uttered within, the human word
Tells what truth is, in this haunted world,
This land of the mind, in whose sky the sun moves.