Littell's Living Age/Volume 173/Issue 2241/In the Baptistery, Westminster Abbey

by W. H. Savile

The streaming sunlight floods the crimson panes
     Where Cowper and George Herbert, side by side,
     Stand out, transfigured and thrice-glorified,
From their calm world no ruder step profanes.
Here dwells the poet-saint whose lofty strains
     Have filled the hearts of all men far and wide:
     Here Wordsworth ponders, pensive and tongue-tied,
Some secret gleamed from Nature's fair domains.

And here the faces of those two great men^[1]
     Gaze grandly peaceful, — comrades in the fight,
Who struck their blow for Truth with fearless pen.
A sunbeam flits between them from above:
     And as the one bears witness, "God is Light!"
Still comes the other's answer, "God is Love!"

Notes

1. F. D. Maurice and Charles Kingsley. (Wikisource contributor note)