Classic Poem

19

" Not of this world my kingdom!" Heard I not
The Evangel word descend from Heaven's blue dome,
And hover, dove-like, o'er the shrines where rot
The Art, the Lust, the Majesty of Rome?
" Not of this world!" Once more the echoes come,
The while his holy verse the shepherd sings
In these green hills of quiet Christendom,
And o'er his head the skylark shakes his wings,
And from the vale below the slender steeple springs!

20

Such sounds of old in many a Northman's breast
Prevailed, nor least in thine, Gundrada's Lord!
Whether thy spirit fled its own unrest,
Or conscience goaded with some crime abhorred,
Here, at God's shrine, thy lavish gifts were poured;
And hence the PRIORY rose. Magnificent
Swelled the round Arch; the glowing Window soared;
And, at the Altar, meek the Warrior bent
Before the cloistered Priest who bade his soul " Repent!"

21

And sure if e'er, in Faith's exalted mood,
The visions that in Bethlehem came to cheer
Saint Jerome's cell, the strains that solitude
Drew earthwards for Theresa's ravished ear,
Could bring the soul the balm of Heaven — 'twere here;
Here, where each landscape the soothed spirit fills
With rural sights to Contemplation dear,
And fainter breathes the fame of human ills,
As yon far clouds whose shadows fleck the silent hills!

22

Why roofless then remain these ivied piles
Of pinnacle and arch, the owl's abode?
The shrineless choirs, the desolated aisles,
O'er which proud Commerce drives her iron road?
What means the Monastery's fall? Has God
Stamped with this signet of His high disdain
The path that first the Saint of Nursia trod?
Springs there no Grace from penitential Pain?
Did Bernard keep his watch, did Francis fast, in vain?

23

Not so! The saints for their own ages wrought,
Sweetening the gross world with a purer leaven:
But, when the times were full, the Almighty taught
That on this earth is found no cloistered Heaven.
Few are the souls that Solitude hath shriven!
" Love beareth all!" And happier those abide,
And unto them Perfection's palm is given,
Who, in Temptation's fiery furnace tried,
Still in their daily walk confess the Crucified!

24

Church of our Fathers, to thy fame be true!
Not claiming haughty powers to loose and bind;
But like thy gentle Priest our Chaucer drew,
Mild, social, active, charitable, kind;
Not all unheedful of the People's mind,
Nor on the People's pleasure forced to wait;
Simple in Faith, by Wisdom's lore refined,
For rich for poor fulfil thine ample fate,
And breathe from age to age, the Conscience of the State!

25

Forbid it, Heaven, our eyes should see the day,
When from the hallowed Throne Religion flung
By envious sects shall lie the tortured prey
Of Priesthood's dogma, or of Faction's tongue!
That day the knell of Liberty were rung!
The State should toil with feebler heart and brain,
And all the fibres of its soul unstrung;
And Science sink; and Superstition reign: —
Then these Monastic walls perhaps should rise again!