Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Through Canterbury's long-drawn aisles
The vesper-hymn was pealing,
And the censer's breath fell in snowy wreath
On crowds upon the marble pavement kneeling.

Of Him who came, the world's true Light,
All in the winter dreary,
At midnight cold in the days of old,
The Son of God, the Son of blessed Mary:

Of Him, as o'er the sunset sky
Dark shades of eve were thronging,
The brethren sung, and the arched roof rung,
Each fretted bend the far-off notes prolonging.

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But hark! that loud unholy din
The cloistral echoes waking,
And the heavy tread that affrights the dead,
And clash of arms the tomb's weird stillness breaking!

Far up the nave the sound is borne,
Nigher it comes and nigher,
And for very fear they pause to hear,
In quivering thrills the hymn's last notes expire.

Now glancing in the northern aisle
Those mail-clad forms they see;
Hear the taunts so rude of those men of blood,
“Where is the traitor Prelate, where is he?”

Then raising high his pastoral cross,
The Archbishop came alone;
Unruffled his brow, and his speech was slow,
As he stood beside St. Bennett's altar-stone.

“He whom ye seek, God's chosen priest,
No traitor false am I;
But your tyrant lord, he hath given the word,
Work forth your will: I yield not, though I die.”

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He turned him to the altar then,
His hands in prayer upraising:
“To Him whose sovereign will both ye and all fulfil,
To God most high, above all mortal praising;

“Blest Mary, and the patrons all
Of this polluted shrine,
Denys, the martyr-saint, who hears the dying plaint;
To them I leave the Church's cause and mine.”

Meekly is bent that lofty brow,
The murderer's knife hath sped;
They may cleanse the blood-stains, but the guilt remains;
It clings to them, the soul to heaven hath fled.