Ah, there he stands, the great Horatio,

Looking down on London’s square. I’ve been

On a long journey through the streets of stone,

My sculptor’s chisel honed, my eye as keen

As bird’s. I’ve serviced well a royal house;

They paid me not, until the very last,

But stone will do me well to tell the tale

Resistant to the skirmish and the blast.

The eye arises; but do his eyes look down?

Eve on her fountain dances in the wind

From nowhere. I must celebrate

In monuments of marble, so well pinned

That they’ll not fall until the thankless town

Salutes the hero and his burning freight.

 

 

David Punter.