 | Sursum Corda |  |
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WHITBY.
Where the grey Northern sea gnaws cliffs of shale, and the white waves
Wrestle in hissing wrath with a brown, irrepressible river,
Hilda, the Saint, the Princess, founded a fair stone cloister.
Wrestle in hissing wrath with a brown, irrepressible river,
Hilda, the Saint, the Princess, founded a fair stone cloister.
What of her work remains—of the carven stone and the wood—work?
Haply a fragment here of a pillar with pattern enlacing;
Naught in the desolate walls of the roofless ruin, that after
Rose where her building had been, and now itself is abandoned,
Crowning with unintentional beauty the red-roofed houses,
Which from the river climb, and cling like flow'rs to the cliff-face.
Haply a fragment here of a pillar with pattern enlacing;
Naught in the desolate walls of the roofless ruin, that after
Rose where her building had been, and now itself is abandoned,
Crowning with unintentional beauty the red-roofed houses,
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What of her work remains—who knows?—in the lives of the people?
Something, we doubt it not, from every noble endeavour
Down the ages descends, though none but God can distinguish.
Aye, for He sendeth the springs from a hundred valleys to mingle
Here, where the Northern sea still gnaws the cliffs, and the white waves
Wrestle in hissing wrath with the brown, irrepressible river.
Something, we doubt it not, from every noble endeavour
Down the ages descends, though none but God can distinguish.
Aye, for He sendeth the springs from a hundred valleys to mingle
Here, where the Northern sea still gnaws the cliffs, and the white waves
Wrestle in hissing wrath with the brown, irrepressible river.
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