Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their properĀ habitsĀ vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurdā
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of theĀ pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-handĀ gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness inĀ effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptorās sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
TheirĀ supineĀ stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspendedĀ skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only anĀ attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their finalĀ blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.