Men call you “dark.” Did that faith see with cobwebbed eyes, That built the airy octagon on Ely’s hill, And Gloucester’s Eastern wall that woos the topaz skies, p. 2Where the hymn Angelic “Glory be to God on high, And peace on earth to men who feel good will,”  Might softly sound God’s throne around? Is that a perfect faith Which pew-filled chapels rears, Where Gothic fronts of stone mask backs of ill-baked bricks, And where the frothy fighting preacher fears, As peasants fear a wraith, His deacon’s frown or some just change in politics?

p. 2

Men call you “dark.” Was Chaucer’s speech a muddy stream, The language born of Norman sun and Saxon snow? Was Langland’s verse or Wyclif’s prose mere glow-worm’s gleam? And the tales Of Arthur’s sword and of the holy Grail, And Avalon, the isle where no storms blow:  From such romance did no light glance? Have we not heard a tongue, Whose words the Saxon thralls Would scorn to speak above their muck-rake and their fork, The speech of barrack-rooms and music-halls, Where every fool has flung The rotten refuse of Calcutta and New York?

p. 3Men call you “dark.” But chivalry and honour stand As words that you, not we, did fashion, when the need Of food beyond the price of gold awoke our land. For you taught Inconstancy is like a standard lost; And we who prove untrue in love or deed Will doubly shame an ancient name. Your robes were not all white, Your soul was not a sea Where all the crystal rivulets of God found room:  But we must often to your lessons flee, Our truth with yours unite, Before we meet the holy dayspring of the doom.

p. 3

p. 4II THE BELLS OF VENICE

p. 4

II

Ring out again that faltering strain, Cease not so soon, Sweet peal that brought to me the thought Of some deep shadowed English lane Across the blue lagoon.

Ring

The water street where oarsmen meet And shout ahead, The glowing quay, all noise and glee, Seemed hallowed as when angels’ feet Touched Jacob’s stony bed.

On pearly dome and princely home Day’s glory dies: Once more the bells’ low murmur tells That faith is not a line of foam Nor life a bridge of sighs.

p. 5III AN ANCIENT CHURCH

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