 | Firdausi in Exile and Other Poems |  |
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THE CHURCH BY THE SEA.
I
That spirit of wit, whose quenchless rayTo wakening England Holland lent,
In whose frail wasted body lay
The orient and the occident,
II
Still wandering in the night of time,Nor yet conceiving dawn should be,
A pilgrim with a gift of rhyme,
Sought out Our Lady by the Sea.
III
Along the desolate downs he rode,And pondered on God's mystic name,
Till with his beads and votive ode,
To Walsingham Erasmus came.
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IV
He found the famous chapel there,Unswept, unlatticed, undivine,
And the bleak gusts of autumn air
Blew sand across the holy shrine.
V
Two tapers in a spicy mistScarce lit the jewelled heaps of gold,
As pilgrim after pilgrim kissed
The relics that were bought and sold.
VI
A greedy Canon still beguiledThe wealthy at his wicket-gate,
And o'er his shining tonsure smiled
A Virgin doubly desecrate.
VII
The pattered prayers, the incense swung,The embroidered throne, the golden stall,
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And North Sea sand across it all!
VIII
He mocked, that spirit of matchless wit;He mourned the rite that warps and seres:
And seeing no hope of health in it,
He laughed lest he should break in tears.
IX
And we, if still our reverend fanesLie open to the salt-sea deep,
If flying sand our choir profanes,
Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep?
X
We toll the bell, we throng the aisle,We pay a wealth in tithe and fee,
We wreathe the shrine, and all the while
Our Church lies open to the sea.
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XI
The brackish wind that stirs the flame,And fans the painted saints asleep,
From heaven above it never came,
But from the starless Eastern deep.
XII
The storm is rising o'er the sea,The long bleak windward line is grey,
And when it rises, how shall we
And our weak tapers fare that day?
XIII
Perchance amid the roar and crackOf starting beams we yet shall stand;
Perchance our idols shall not lack
Deep burial in the shifting sand.
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