The Prophecy of Westminster, And other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Prophecy of Westminster, And other Poems

In Honour of Henry Edward, Cardinal Manning. By Harriet Eleanor Hamilton King

King, Harriet Eleanor Baillie-Hamilton (1840-1920)

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The Prophecy of Westminster.

The Cardinal's Peace.

Procession of the League of the Cross.

Archbishop's House, Westminster.

Bayswater.

The Comforter Comforted.

Postscript.

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The Prophecy of Westminster.

King Edward lay at Havering Bower,
At Havering on the Hill;
Southward it looks across the land,
An English Eden still.

“To-day I pass to Thorney Isle,”
King Edward mused, and said,
“The Holy Hermit beckoned me,
Last night beside my bed.”

Then from the height of Havering,
The King and lords rode down
Through stately avenues of chase
To Romford market-town:

And on into the green wood's heart,
With all glad sounds alive,
Beneath the spreading of the oaks,
And down the Hornbeam Drive.

Oh, white, all white, the hawthorns stood,
And yellow all the whin,
And black the shining holly-bowers,
With nightingales within.

And when the bells of Navestock
The Angelus did ring,
They stayed their steeds three Aves time,
And after, spake the king:

“Make haste! Make haste! High noon is past”;
And faster, at the word,
Their horses' hoofs beside the Bourne
Sprang o'er the daisied sward.

The orchards of the monks stood thick
In rosy garlands fair,
The humming of the honey-bees
Was over all the air.

The Angel faces smiled on him,
Of his East Anglian folk,
And from their woodland cottages
Curled up the thin blue smoke.

The cakes were baking on the hearth,
The byres and barns were full,
The spinning-wheels and armoiries
Held store of flax and wool;
Plenty and peace went everywhere
With good King Edward's rule.

Oh, filled with fairy cowslip gold
The little children's hands;
And fearless in his face they looked,
The lord of all these lands;

For this was not the ploughing-time,
Nor harvesting, nor hay;
It was the month of nesting birds,
The moonlight month of May;
And this was Merry England then,
When all had time to play.

The blue-winged jays before them flew,
And chattered through the wood,
And one by one the kingfishers
Flashed through the solitude.

White miles of mere at Dagenham
Were crowded to the edge
With armies of the waterfowl,
And from the secret sedge

Came notes of call, and stirrings soft
Of myriad brooding wings,
And the lordly drakes sailed out, and left
A wake of glittering rings.

The flapping herons overhead
Went with them in their course,
Until they came to Barking Creek,
And lighted down from horse.

They drank from bowls of beechen-wood,
Upon the rushy brink;
The sweetest water in the world
Is this of Thames to drink.

They loosened from the mooring-place,
They pushed from off the marge;
And up the royal river straight
They steered the royal barge.

By pleasant Plaistow in the Marsh,
Their nests the swallows keep;
In parsley and marsh-marigold
The cattle stood knee-deep.

They passed, beneath the towering elms,
The market-place of Bow;
And up and down, by Wick and Town,
The winding reaches go.

To London Tower and London Wall
The rowers came at last;
Between the piles of London Bridge
On flood of tide they passed.

And all the busy London wharves
Came close before their eyes,
Crowded with boats of watermen,
And fleets of merchandise.

The Friesland and the Flemish folk,
And ships with Gascon wine,
And they who bring the costly fruits
From markets Byzantine;
And fishing-boats at Billingsgate,
Smelling of tar and brine.

They glided past the City Bars,
Where, on the King's right hand,
With gleams of fading primroses
Sloped down the flowery Strand;

And on his left the trackless marsh
Lay low and green and fair,
Out to the blue horizon hills,
With haunts of hiding there.

Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet, the willow-wrens
In rustling reeds do sing;
And clear, clear, clear the larks in heaven
Ring out to greet the King.

Oh, low, low, low the wood-pigeons
Coo from the branches high;
And loud, loud, loud the nightingales
From budding brakes reply.

And now at last, the whitethorn lights
Of Thorney Isle appear,
A mound of snow, above, below,
And in the water clear.

And as unto the bank they came,
They saw a sign most strange;
The sailing down of all the swans,
As far as sight could range.

Their white wings waved all round the isle,
Like white sea-foam alive,
A circling reef; and streaming down,
Still other swans arrive.

Then marvelled much the King thereat,
And troubled was his face;
“So many swans I never saw,
All gathered in one place.”

King Edward tracked the woodland maze,
The holy Hermit's screen;
But open was the middle space,
And there the grass grew green,
And blue the hyacinths, where once
St. Peter's Church had been.

The Hermit sat outside his cell,
In life's last borderlands;
Full lowly knelt the holy King
Beneath his trembling hands.

The Hermit woke as from a dream:
“King Edward, art thou come?
Then praised be God! My time is short,
To-night I shall be dumb.

Send back thy rowers for a priest;
And this one hour be mine.
Yea, Peter's self it was stood here:—
Last night he brought the sign.

Four hundred years and more have flown,
Since to this spot he came,
And his own church did consecrate
By heavenly midnight flame.

The heathen have not left a trace
Of holy feet that trod;
These choristers of May alone
Do warble praise of God.

It is to thee, O crownèd King,
God gives another crown;
Here is to be thy monument,
The shrine of thy renown.

God grants thee, Edward, twenty years,
Till all shall be fulfilled;
Glorious shall be the House of God
Which here thou shalt rebuild;

For palace and for sanctuary,
For London's watch and ward;
For honour of great Peter,
With Paul her gates to guard.

This thy great Minster of the West
Grows in its place, O King;
Like dreams it seems of carvèd gleams
Of angels' fashioning;
The height, the depth, the mystery
Of heaven's imagining.

And here within the wondrous walls,
Kings shall be born, and die;
And thou, O Edward, in the midst
In thy last peace shalt lie.

The kings in proud procession pass
For crowning of thy race;
Solemn and slow with chants they go
Unto their burial-place.

Years—generations—centuries—
I see the Altar blaze;
And day and night to God's great throne
Ascendeth prayer and praise:
Yet one thing lacketh, only one;
Sleep then the Saints always?

I see the See of Canterbury
Is set for rise and fall;
Many and great her Saints shall be,
Yet shall she lose her Pall.”

His voice dropped down;—a sudden gloom
The earth and sky o'erran;
And the King trembled on his knees
Beside the Holy Man;
And long he feared;—till faint and far,
Once more his speech began.

“I see,” he said, “a place of tombs;
In darkness there they lie;
No single altar lamp illumes
The empty Sanctuary.

Thou sleepest, Edward, in the midst,
And angels watch beside;
But all around, from underground,
Pale ghosts at midnight glide.

They fill, in dim and whispering crowds,
Thy Minster of the West;
No prayers are said or sung for them,
Their souls can find no rest.

Through all the awful avenues
They wander in their woe;
The Cross is gone,—the holy hours
No holy vigils know.

All the vast darkness heaves with sighs;
Yet at the farthest end
A streak of brightness seems to show
The door to which I wend:

A golden beam that spreads and shines,
And all entranceth me;—
A form of white, a face of light,
Of loveliest majesty.

Is it the Holy Father's face,
That blesseth all the earth?
A pilgrimage to Rome for this
Were well a lifetime worth.

Is it the blessèd Evangelist
Who lay on Jesus' breast?
Hath he then tarried all this time,
And come into the West?

He is so old, he is so frail,
I cannot tell if he
Be still on earth, or hath stepped down
From heaven's high company.

A mitre is upon his head,
A ring is on his hand;—
And such a face I have not seen;
Nor did I understand
Till now, how the Apostles looked
And spoke, in Holy Land.

Yet is thy great West Minster
Against him closed and barred;
Meseemeth that he stands outside,
And over it keeps guard.

Oh, he is come, the Shepherd comes
To feed the flock once more!
And greater grace hath Westminster
Than that she lost before.

She hath her Prince, she hath her Saint,
The Father sits at home:
Oh, happy are the eyes that see
Those days long hence to come!

Rest, rest, poor ghosts! He watches now,
With holy hands of prayer.
Sink down, O City, into sleep!
He has you in his care.

Edward, a greater one than thou
Shall make his home with thee:—
O sweetest Saint of England's sons,
Whose smile far-off I see,
In thy pure prayers for all poor souls,
Remember even me!”

The Cardinal's Peace.

SEPTEMBER, 1889.

Oh, black and inky rolled the Thames,
An empty water-way;
And moored in ranks the silent ships
Black and deserted lay;
It seemed as if into Dead-Man's Land
London had drifted away.

All down the great Commercial Road,
The busy August time,
Was never a grind of waggon-wheel,
Or horse's hoofs in chime;
It waited as if for a Funeral March
Through the empty glare and grime.

By Limehouse tower and Limehouse wall,
Where mariners look to land,
Masts of o'erladen ships stood tall
Without a helping hand;
And the dead who were lying under the stones
In the churchyard seemed to stand.

It was the People's Cardinal
Sat in his large bare room;
A dreary place in which to wait
Mid London fog and gloom:—
Then suddenly a garden
Of roses all in bloom,

As the door opened, and he stood
In sovereign presence there;
While quivering wings of angels stirred
The changed harmonious air,
And the open gates of Paradise
Startled us unaware.

Black was the house outside, and bright
The heart of the house inside;
Its nakedness and poverty
The treasure could not hide
It held,—the Saint of Westminster,
The old man glorious-eyed.

The great Cathedrals that were his
He might not have nor hold;
He sat not in the House of Peers,
No tithes to him were told;
But he counted the souls of Londoners,
As a rich man counts his gold.

He spake to the souls of Londoners;—
“My millions that are mine!—
Whom God hath given me I will keep,—
My flock by right divine;
You cannot get away from me,—
Not one will I resign.

For here I am,—and one by one
My thoughts your steps pursue;
When you are born, and when you die
My prayers go up for you;
I, your poor priest, my post must keep:—
'Tis all that I can do.”

Hundreds of thousands of his own
Had never heard his name;
Hundreds of thousands knew no more
Than some vague waft of fame;
And many were proud and hard of heart,
And senseless went and came.

But never a soul came face to face,
That had the grace of God,
But straight to his salutation leapt,
And followed the way he trod;
With joy to be fed from the Shepherd's hand,
And ruled by the Shepherd's rod.

There came a step, there came a hand,
There came a voice to his ear:
“Do you know, O my Lord Cardinal,
That your people want you here?
And to-morrow blood will run in the streets
Unless some help is near.

At the dock-gates they stand determined,
There is war betwixt man and man;
Leaders have parleyed either side
The utmost that they can;
And ominous were the words to-day
Through the starving crowds that ran.”

The Cardinal arose and came;
His people saw his face;
All in the midst of the multitude
He raised his hand of grace;—
And some men said that a strange swift light
Flashed from it through the place.

It was the Moon, the Fisher's Moon,
That shineth over the seas;
And London all at her feet lay small,
In the glory of her increase;
And warm were the nights she brought with her,
Till the night of the Cardinal's Peace.

What were the toils, and the fightings,
The patience and the pain?
What were the powers he wrestled with?
We do not know them plain:
But we know that he won the poor man's cause,
And the labourer's lasting gain.

Pray for us, Henry Edward!
Thou Patron of the Poor;
Thou knewest, and didst share with us
The sorrows we endure;
Forget us not, though thou hast passed
Into thy port secure.

Oh, London lieth desolate
Since that dark day you went!
Do you, amid your Eastertide,
Know that we still keep Lent?
Once only, amid centuries,
Such souls from God are sent.

From over seas on pilgrimage
They came, to kiss thy hand;
While we, who were within thy gates,
We did not understand.—
Oh, broken hearts; oh, wasted lives;
Oh, lost light in our land!

Procession of the League of the Cross.

ARCHBISHOP'S HOUSE, WESTMINSTER, JUNE 7th, 1890.

On a hot summer's day, the seventh of June,
The crowded, humming London afternoon
Was crost by streams convergent, ranks that went
By tens of thousands, orderly, intent
Upon their mission. And the gathering-place
Of these poor Leaguers was an open space
Beneath his windows, where the Cardinal
Might watch their meeting. That familiar road
Lay hot and dusty, with its blank grey wall:
The staring blocks of red-brick mansions stood
In naked hideousness, unshadowed, tall,
A background to the waste enclosure, all
With heaps of rubbish cumbered; and the rows
Of mean and huddled houses baking lay
And sweltering in the sun: small choice for those
Who dwelt therein, between the scorching day
And dust outside, or stifling chambers small
Inside;—for them no rest or cool at all.
Yet, would to God, that day might come again!

For he was there;—oh, happy time and place!
Was the day sultry? Vulgar was the street?
Nay, glorious! At the window might his face
Be caught in glimpses;—then a gleam more sweet
Than that of dewy roses down a lawn
Illumined all the blank;—and when withdrawn,
Content we waited, knowing he was near,
Until the vanished smile should re-appear.
O suddenly irradiated space!
O agèd beautiful face! Our father's face,
Whose every look is benediction! Grace
Is given us still; this little while is ours;
Thine eyes are on us, and beneath thy hand,
Thy blessèd hand of blessing, we may stand;
Still, still the priceless minutes count the hours:—
Oh, would to God that they were ours again!

Most patiently, most cheerfully, the throng
Waited, and stood their ground, crowded and hot;
They did not seem to find the hours too long,
Their scanty week-day leisure grudged they not.
This was their holiday—a scorching sky,
A dusty street,—some hours to stand, and then
A march,—a meeting-place:—and by-and-bye
In thirst and hunger, miles to tramp again

To those poor homes where rest is scarcely found
Through the close summer nights;—while all around
Rolled the full tide of luxury and wealth,
Delicious ease, cool garments, rosy health,
Fruits melting, fountains falling, careless ways
Hither and thither as each fancy sways.
And yet these toilers envied not, nor sighed
For any softness of the summer-tide;
But took their pleasure manfully, between
The broiling pavement and the burning sun.
O wise! O fortunate! This hour, this scene,
The pride of all the empire has not won,
The wealth of all the future cannot buy;
This is the one last opportunity
Of meeting here without, and he within:—
Well worth a wearier pilgrimage to win.
The precious moments pass—we know their price—
Here are we,—no, it is no sacrifice,
But an unutterable boon, a thing
To treasure for life-long remembering:—
O, would to God it might but come again!

A woman stood beside me, tattered, rough,
And yet not miserable,—for each limb
Was full of fire, her voice was loud enough;
She pointed wildly at him where he stood,
Exclaiming, “There! there! Bless his soul! That's him!
There's his old Cap!”—Good woman, it was rude;
Her manners were decidedly not quite;—
I did not wish his eyes on her to alight:
Yet would to God that she could do it again!

A pile confused of masonry and wood,
Of scaffold poles, and brickwork incomplete,
Half-hidden by unsightly hoardings, stood
An eyesore at the corner of the street:
On this the children carelessly meanwhile
Clambered, and laughed, and tumbled, at their play.
O, happy children! whom the Father's smile
Beams down upon, for whom the Father's eye
Marks each unconscious movement tenderly!
'Tis a poor, ugly playground, yet to-day,
Outside the folded fields of Paradise,

Ye will not find another place to play
So sweet as this:—for in the Past it lies.
Oh, would to God that it were Now again!

'Tis time at last! With sudden deafening burst
The band strikes up, and forward step the first;
The crowd, a moving column, moves as one,
The march of the procession has begun.
Its length unwinding onward rank by rank,
Forth in the front the banner is unrolled,
The Marshals proudly guiding on the flank,
Girt with their silken sashes green and gold:
Pathetic simple finery that speaks
Of the obscure, heroic days and weeks,
As piece by piece the hoarded price was told.
The Cardinal's Guards—O men of great goodwill!
Hard though your lot, ye have your guerdon here;
What earthly master can ye serve more dear?
What nobler office can earth's proudest fill?
Would you not keep your colours even there,
Where he shall meet you at the palace gate,
Watching for your arrival, soon or late,

Counting you one by one, not one to spare:
His own, his children?—Will you not recall
This day and other days, and meet his eye,
Saying, “We have kept the pledge, My Cardinal!
Now let us be once more thy company!”
And these insignia, green and gold, ye wear,
Shall not be wanting in the happy train
That follow him, their father, and remain
His flock in the eternal pastures fair.
Yet would to God that hour could come again!

The column rounds the corner:—at its head
The music quickens with the quickened tread;
This is the turning-point, the spot that lies
Right underneath his windows,—there he stands
Full in the front, with sacerdotal hands,
The central soul of each high enterprise.
And rank by rank advancing, as the place
They enter, by one movement, every face
Is raised to his, each hand in all the crowd
Waves a salute, each foot treads firm and proud,
Each heart thrills with a heavenly harmony:—
And for one glorious moment eye meets eye,

Hand answers hand, and heart is one with heart:—
March past, march past, true-hearted soldiery!
The Saints are with you, God is on your part!
The black, large-windowed, overshadowing house
Transfigured into alabaster glows;
It is the frame that holds him:—and the tune
Floats down the street, a story without end;
The air is golden now this afternoon
Out to the West, whither their way they wend,
And all the grime and squalor of the town
Are swallowed in the transitory tide,
The flood-tide of an everlasting sea,
Opening the gloomy walls and pavements wide
To glimpses of the Angel's Rosary.
—Already have the breast-high waves sunk down,
As out of sight the humble pageant fades;
The march's echoes die away, the shades
Of evening lie on the deserted street,
The face is from the window, the retreat
Of humming voices leaves a chill behind:—
Ah, we will come another day, to find
Him here:—the silence answers like a knell.

Yet still the dark house holds its treasure hid,
And none therein to enter are forbid;
The door still opens freely to the bell,—
Ah, would to God there were a door in heaven!

But, O my Cardinal! thou art safe away,
The mansions of thy Father's house are thine;
The streets of Westminster are dull and grey,
There thy poor people wander still and pine;
No more thy lamp doth from the window shine,
Yet would to God that they might see thee again!

Thou art gone from earth, and light of life with thee:
Oh, aching hearts and lonely, left behind!
Come back to us, one more last look to see!
Oh no, no, no, O most sweet soul, most kind!
We would not break thy rest, nor call to mind
The shadow of our earthly misery:
Farewell, farewell to thy eternity!
But oh! some day once more thy face to find!—
Oh, would to God—O God, Thy Will be done!

Archbishop's House, Westminster.

A dark forbidding front it wears,
Yet like a lamp across the night
It sends its beams, and unawares
The world rejoices in its light;
This is the house, the door, the street,
Whereat all roads in focus meet.

The little children fearlessly
Play on its steps, and climb around;
Although no superfluity
Of wealth within those walls is found,
The fostering, the glow, the air,
Of Charity they feel is there.

The friendly darkness of that door
At nightfall shelters the despised;
The desolate, the shamed, the poor,
They come and go unrecognised:
But ah! they go not as they came,
Cheered by that soul of living flame.

This whole vast city, all of it,
City of Peter and of Paul,
East-end and West-end, both are knit
In one without dividing wall;
All London's pulses seem to stir
From that one heart at Westminster.

Seem?—Oh, the changed, the darkened ways!
The weary wilderness of stone!
Must we then speak of other days,
And of a comfort that is flown?
O face that we may meet no more!
Though we may enter at thy door.

Beauty of childhood and of youth,
Of motherhood, and manhood's prime:—
And yet I never knew in truth
How far the human soul could climb
Up to the glorious face of God,
Till before that old man I stood.

So old, so lonely, and so frail,
The heart has ached to leave him there,
While all without was golden-pale
With summer warmth and summer air;
Those bleachèd hands the sun had missed,
Pierced by their pathos as we kissed.

But O our Saint! for unreproved
At last we may pronounce thy name,
Our own even yet, our most beloved,
Is not thy heart to us the same?
Thy trial past, on that safe shore,
Dost thou not pity us the more?

Pray for us, help us, as our pain
Grows heavier, and thou art not here;
The dark, the desolate days remain,
Despair has come too near, too near;
We were thy children:—can it be
We shall be lost in spite of thee?

Bayswater.

The dreariest, dullest quarter,
Of all the myriad maze,—
Of blank and featureless spaces,
Of bare and dismal ways:—

The grey fog lifts, and settles,
And shifts itself at will,
Softening alone the long lines
Of houses, dingier still.

And there in the early morning,
Along th' unwakened street,
Day after day unfailing
Passed down those blessèd feet.

He went with a heart o'erburdened,
And overwearied brain,
And every step on the pavement
Rang with a thrill of pain.

And beside him, his young deacon
Walked with him as his son;
And neither dreamed of the ending
Of the life that was begun;—

Of the thirty-five years coming,
They should not be apart,
Of the way more glorious growing,
And closer heart in heart;—

Till the son should be to the father
The staff of his old age,
And the light of the lonely evenings
At the close of pilgrimage.

They carried the Bread of Angels,
Humbly their way they trod,
And no one knew as they met them,
That these were the saints of God.

Empty of all but the east wind,
Littered with tatters and straw,
The colourless grimy roadways
Stretching, were all they saw.

But oh! for ever and ever,
On their heavenly errand bent,
They haunt with their holy presence
The wearisome way they went.

Oh, little they knew in the morning,
In the cold and in the rain,
That any should come hereafter,
And look down the road again,

And stand on the stones now sacred,
And say with tear-dimmed eyes,
“This was the way our father walked
On the path of Paradise.”

Now it is spring in England,
Spring of another year;
And all the earth, awakening, knows
He is no longer here.

The crocus even is not glad,
Upon his grave it blows;
More chilly is the western wind,
The very blackbird knows.

The cocks crow loud in the morning,
But no more they say, “Arise!
This day to the house of thy father
Thou shalt go, and meet his eyes.”

The welcome of his presence
Draws on from mile to mile,
Till the whole vast gloom of London
Is radiant with his smile.

Oh! what has this year left us,
For that light of roses fled?—
We have a place of weeping,
A garden of the dead.

A place that shivers with sorrow,
And cheerless even in May;
Where the grass is trodden and sodden,
And the skies are always grey.

O all ye cities of pilgrimage!
Cities of long ago,—
That have the homes, that have the streets,
Where Saints went to and fro,

That keep their bones, that guard their shrines,
Ye still are far to seek;
Too far for many, even now,
Of lame, and poor, and weak.

Now take thy turn, O London!
And be jealous of no compeer;
For the last, it may be the greatest,
Of the Saints, sleeps with us here.

The Comforter Comforted.

O thou whose throne was set in Westminster,
Among the many god-like names whereby
We hold thee in our hearts, this one doth lie
Nearest each thought of thee—the Comforter.
What bitter pains, what manifold disgrace
Hiding itself from every other face,
What broken hearts, what wounds of penitents,
What secret cruelties, what ghastly rents,
Open have lain beneath thy pitying eye,
Fled to thy bosom as to sanctuary,
And felt thy holy tenderness outpoured
Upon the quivering life, to hope restored!

The benediction of thy sacred hand,
The heavenly music of thy voice most sweet,
O most belovèd lord in all this land,
Passed into those that sorrowed at thy feet.

Mourning they came, with empty hands alone,
When all the ground with withered leaves was strown,
And sobs of rain in gusts were gathering near,
With last winds wailing of the dying year.
And when they passed out from thee, lo! the Sun
In Aries stood, and all the woodland bowers
Were thick with buds that waited gentle showers,
And birds were busy in the year begun.

O piercing eyes! O tender eyes! whose look
Flashed like a sword-thrust to the inmost core,
With healing even when they held rebuke—
O sovereign eyes, our eyes may meet no more!
Judge us, O Father! for thy rule austere
Is sweeter than a mother's and more mild;
And what against the world have we to fear,
If once thy silver voice have said, “My child”?
Alas, vain words, alas! One hovering foe
Betwixt us watched, and now his power we know.

O lonely by thine eminence apart,
More lonely by pre-eminence of heart!
Thou that didst seek and find one earthly breast
Whereon thine own, O Friend of God, might rest—
He, from thy dying hands, to us bereft,
A sacred legacy of love was left.
He was thy best; thou, to thyself severe,
Didst not this one last luxury refuse,
Unstinted in thy comfort only here,
The pearl most precious for thyself to choose.

We came to seek thy face at Westminster,
Loving thee—yes! God knows our love was true;
Yet (how else could it be?), self-seeking too;
But he came in to be thy minister.
We craved thy gifts,—what gifts had we to bring,
Save love and reverence, meet for offering?
What might of ours save winged prayers intrude
On thy heroic heights of solitude?
But when the door was shut he passed inside,
And stayed with thee, and talked at eventide;
And open lay to him as to God's sight,
(In whose eyes not even souls of Saints are white),

Thy weariness, thy loneliness, the load
Of all those souls to whom the pastures green
By thee were opened, and the waters flowed
Of comfort through thy travailing unseen;
And the pathetic patience of thy years,
That never made complaint to any ears
But his—all this, and more, of hallowed grief
Appealing turned to him, and found relief.

We too, thy children, needs must love the one
Who gave thee service more than any Son;
And we, thy comforted, pray soft and low,
God bless thy Comforter, who loved thee so!

Postscript.

I was too late, too late, my Cardinal,
To do thee any service, save such small
Delightful service as a child might do;
And so have missed my life's most precious due.
Mine! for God knoweth it was not my heart,
Nor fault thereof, that kept us so apart;
But grievous falsehood, and a wrong unkind
Done to an innocent and duteous mind.
Therefore, I was not of that company
Of those who lived and laboured, following thee.
And now forgive me, if I do thee wrong,
By mourning thee too sadly, and too long.
Thy Son and thy Beloved holds thy state,
Thy diocese is not disconsolate;
The heavy yoke another's shoulders wear,
Which thou until thy dying day didst bear:

And now befits the season that we gave
Rather than tears, our flowers, upon thy grave.
Yet this is not for me, since I must bow
To God, and what His wisdom doth allow;
Who hath not left me any strength of limb
Wherewith to walk a pilgrim, serving Him;
In this fair earth whereon her Maker trod,
And wrought the healing miracles of God,
This earth whereon He bade us sow and reap,
Extend His vineyard, feed and fold His sheep.
Alas, I may not follow thee at all
In any works of mercy corporal;
(For thou wast merciful, and if thy will
Had had its way, I should not suffer still;)
And from my failing hands, day after day
The work, though not the burden, drops away.
Happy are they who serve, and know God's grace,—
He hath appointed me a lower place;
The place of those that suffer.—Therefore I
Cut off from solace of activity,
Bound to perpetual servitude of pain,

Take my allotted station in thy train,
And must through life thy Sorrower remain.

I bring this little gift memorial:—
Pray for me, pray for me, my Cardinal,
That God's deliverance even on me may fall!