XXXII

RURAL CEREMONY 68

1821 1822

CLOSING the Sacred Book which long has fed
Our meditations, give we to a day

Of annual joy one tributary lay;

This day, when, forth by rustic music led,
The village Children, while the sky is red

With evening lights, advance in long array
Through the still churchyard, each with garland gay,
That, carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head
Of the proud Bearer. To the wide church-door,
Charged with these offerings which their fathers bore
For decoration in the Papal time,

The innocent procession softly moves:

The spirit of Laud is pleased in Heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves!

XXXIII

REGRETS

1821 1822

WOULD that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave Less scanty measure of those graceful rites

And usages, whose due return invites

A stir of mind too natural to deceive;

Giving to Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope! - I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,

Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in some gay church
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial Spring.

XXXIV

MUTABILITY

1821 1822

FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale

Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,

Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,

Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear

His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

XXXV

OLD ABBEYS

1821 1822

MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way,
Untouched by due regret I marked your fall!
Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all
Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay
On our past selves in life's declining day:
For as, by discipline of Time made wise,
We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others- gently as he may,
So with our own the mild Instructor deals,
Teaching us to forget them or forgive.69
Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill
Why should we break Time's charitable seals?
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live!

XXXVI

EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY

1821 1827

EVEN while I speak, the sacred roofs of France
Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled

From altars threatened, levelled, or defiled,
Wander the Ministers of God, as chance
Opens a way for life, or consonance

Of faith invites. More welcome to no land
The fugitives than to the British strand,
Where priest and layman with the vigilance
Of true compassion greet them. Creed and test
Vanish before the unreserved embrace

Of catholic humanity: - distrest

They came, and, while the moral tempest roars Throughout the Country they have left, our shores Give to their Faith a fearless resting-place.