LATER POEMS

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

JULY 25, 1881.

(The Day of Burial, in the Abbey, of ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, Dean of Westminster.)

WHAT! for a term so scant

Our shining visitant

Cheer'd us, and now is pass'd into the night?
Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old,
The boon thy dedication-sign foretold, 33
The presence of that gracious inmate, light ?———
A child of light appear'd;

Hither he came, late-born and long-desired,

And to men's hearts this ancient place endear'd; What, is the happy glow so soon expired?

-Rough was the winter eve;

Their craft the fishers leave,

And down over the Thames the darkness drew.

One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the Pile Huge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle, King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new. Tis Lambeth now, where then

They moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems; And that new Minster in the matted fen

The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.

His mates are gone, and he

For mist can scarcely see

A strange wayfarer coming to his side

Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar,

And row him straightway to the further shore,
And wait while he did there a space abide.
The fisher awed obeys,

That voice had note so clear of sweet command;
Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze,
And sets his freight ashore on Thorney strand.

The Minster's outlined mass

Rose dim from the morass,

And thitherward the stranger took his way.
Lo, on a sudden all the Pile is bright!
Nave, choir and transept glorified with light,
While tongues of fire on coign and carving play!
And heavenly odours fair

Come streaming with the floods of glory in,
And carols float along the happy air,

As if the reign of joy did now begin.

Then all again is dark;

And by the fisher's bark

The unknown passenger returning stands.
O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with thee
The fisher from the Lake of Galilee-

So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands;
Then fades, but speaks the while :

At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate

How his St. Peter's Church in Thorney Isle Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate.