TRIP TO HISTORICAL BATH POEM 4

Standing in historical Bath one can almost taste the history. There is so much of the relics of the past left that you are in a Roman Bath with a flowing fountain of religious significance. Miraculous it is - the fountain bubbling still and also that these relics have lasted for so long for us still to see.

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“Though you forget the way to the Temple, There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger.” T.S. Eliot

At The Temple’s Gate

To enter is to breach,

So an end is not possible,

Once the line is crossed,

A move has been made.

This is a hallowed place,

Sanctified and holy by water,

To enter is to worship,

A bridge to a higher place.

In the inner sanctum,

Lies magic and holiness,

Will I be taken?

Is this a holy travail?

At the Temple’s Gate I stand,

No longer at the fountain’s head,

For Rome’s great empire is no more,

A ruin this is not but I stand alone.

“It is necessary for the perfection of human society that there should be men who devote their lives to contemplation.” Thomas Aquinas