Part 71 (1/2)

What voices enrapture The night's balmy prime?--

'Tis Apollo comes leading His choir, the Nine.

--The leader is fairest, But all are divine.

They are lost in the hollows!

They stream up again!

What seeks on this mountain The glorified train?--

They bathe on this mountain, In the spring by their road; Then on to Olympus, Their endless abode.

--Whose praise do they mention?

Of what is it told?-- What will be for ever; What was from of old.

First hymn they the Father Of all things; and then, The rest of immortals, The action of men.

The day in his hotness, The strife with the palm; The night in her silence, The stars in their calm.

LATER POEMS

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

JULY 25, 1881.

(_The Day of Burial, in the Abbey, of_ ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, _Dean of Westminster._)

What! for a term so scant Our s.h.i.+ning visitant Cheer'd us, and now is pa.s.s'd into the night?

Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old, The boon thy dedication-sign foretold,[33]

The presence of that gracious inmate, light?-- A child of light appear'd; Hither he came, late-born and long-desired, And to men's hearts this ancient place endear'd; What, is the happy glow so soon expired?

--Rough was the winter eve; Their craft the fishers leave, And down over the Thames the darkness drew.

One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the Pile Huge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle, King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new.

--'Tis Lambeth now, where then They moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems; And that new Minster in the matted fen The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.

His mates are gone, and he For mist can scarcely see A strange wayfarer coming to his side-- Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar, And row him straightway to the further sh.o.r.e, And wait while he did there a s.p.a.ce abide.

The fisher awed obeys, That voice had note so clear of sweet command; Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze, And sets his freight ash.o.r.e on Thorney strand.

The Minster's outlined ma.s.s Rose dim from the mora.s.s, And thitherward the stranger took his way.

Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright!

Nave, choir and transept glorified with light, While tongues of fire on coign and carving play!

And heavenly odours fair Come streaming with the floods of glory in, And carols float along the happy air, As if the reign of joy did now begin.

Then all again is dark; And by the fisher's bark The unknown pa.s.senger returning stands.

_O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with thee_ _The fisher from the Lake of Galilee--_ So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands; Then fades, but speaks the while: _At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate_ _How his St. Peter's Church in Thorney Isle_ _Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate._

Twelve hundred years and more Along the holy floor Pageants have pa.s.s'd, and tombs of mighty kings Efface the humbler graves of Sebert's line, And, as years sped, the minster-aisles divine Grew used to the approach of Glory's wings.

Arts came, and arms, and law, And majesty, and sacred form and fear; Only that primal guest the fisher saw, Light, only light, was slow to reappear.

The Saviour's happy light, Wherein at first was dight His boon of life and immortality, In desert ice of subtleties was spent Or drown'd in mists of childish wonderment, Fond fancies here, there false philosophy!

And harsh the temper grew Of men with mind thus darken'd and astray; And scarce the boon of life could struggle through, For want of light which should the boon convey.