Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows,

Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows,

Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows.

Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared,

Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of craftsmen we know not reared,

Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and change passed by them as one that feared.

Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed,

Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed,

Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed.

[Pg 143]

Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed:

These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of them quick or dead:

Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head.

Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied hands

Sees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands,

Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud as a virgin stands.

Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her sacred state,

Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters and age makes great:

Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate.

Fate, more high than the star-shown sky, more deep than waters unsounded, shines

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