THAT spirit of wit, whose quenchless ray To wakening England Holland lent, In whose frail wasted body lay The orient and the occident, Still wandering in the night of time, Nor yet conceiving dawn should be, A pilgrim with a gift of rhyme, Sought out Our Lady by the Sea. Along the desolate downs he rode, And pondered on God's mystic name, Till with his beads and votive ode, To Walsingham Erasmus came. He found the famous chapel there, Unswept, unlatticed, undivine, And the bleak gusts of autumn air Blew sand across the holy shrine. Two tapers in a spicy mist Scarce lit the jewelled heaps of gold As pilgrim after pilgrim kissed The relics that were bought and sold. A greedy Canon still beguiled The wealthy at his wicket-gate, And o'er his shining tonsure smiled A Virgin doubly desecrate. The pattered prayers, the incense swung, The embroidered throne, the golden stall, The precious gifts at random flung, -- And North Sea sand across it all! He mocked, that spirit of matchless wit; He mourned the rite that warps and seres: And seeing no hope of health in it, He laughed lest he should break in tears. And we, if still our reverend fanes Lie open to the salt-sea deep, If flying sand our choir profanes, Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep? We toll the bell, we throng the aisle, We pay a wealth in tithe and fee, We wreathe the shrine, and all the while Our Church lies open to the sea. The brackish wind that stirs the flame, And fans the painted saints asleep, From heaven above it never came, But from the starless Eastern deep. The storm is rising o'er the sea, The long bleak windward line is grey, And when it rises, how shall we And our weak tapers fare that day? Perchance amid the roar and crack Of starting beams we yet shall stand Perchance our idols shall not lack Deep burial in the shifting sand. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 13 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR THE SONGS OF SUMMER by MATHILDE BLIND STANE STREET by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN LIFE'S PATTERN by VERDA BORISFIELD |