In Cornwall and Across the Sea :: :: University of Virginia Library

You, our Cathedral who would view aright,
Think not you saw it in the hurried look,
Which, waiting for a train, perchance you took,
Or in one day devoted to the sight.
There is a something of the infinite
In Gothic minsters caught, which will not brook
A dilettanti visit; every nook
Is rich with some religion recondite;
Pillar and groin and corbel and keystone
Are eloquent. The architect may be,
Testing each course and column one by one,
Some glimmer of the mystery may see,
Or the grey dean, whose life for many a year
As chanter, curate, canon, hath been here.

277

II.

Choose you to know our minster as they do?
Go dwell beneath the shadow of its walls,
Seek it at matins, and when even falls,
And, while the flood of music thrills it through
From porch to lady-chapel, fondly view
The old-world carving on the canons' stalls,
Where favoured thou mayst sit, or finials
Upon some baron's tomb, and note the hue
Which glass took in the third King Henry's reign,
The delicacy of the tracery
Which held it in the windows, and rich stain
And symbolism spent in days gone by
Upon the rood-screen, and then, wondering, glance,
Over the nave's vast pillars and expanse!

278

III.

So mayst thou learn, when many a chaunted psalm
Hath risen from thy lips, and many a time
Knee hast thou bowed beneath the roof sublime,
To know the stones not only, but the calm
And mystic atmosphere which yields the charm
In places, where pray'r hath not ceased to climb
Up heaven's altar-steps, and bells to chime
Summons of joy or worship or alarm
For twenty generations. Only those
Who spend their lifetime on it know a thing:
Who lives outside at best can say he knows
“Of it” not “it,” for all his studying:
But “knowing of” not “knowledge” must suffice
For men in daily labour's iron vice.