Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/149

—It may be so. I'm sure' t is loss of time,
For me to speak of pediment and tower,
Saxon or Norman, and debate with warmth,
Whether the chevrar-work, and foliage knots
Are of the third or second Gothic school;
The wise man knows, perchance, the school-boy too.
But poets' cobweb line hath ever failed
To measure these aright, and set them forth
With Euclid's skill. Go see them for yourselves.
Yet can we people every vacant niche,
And mend the headless statue, and restore
The rusted relics of a buried age,
And spread the velvet pall the moth did eat
All fresh and lustrous o'er the ancient dead.
So be ye patient with us, and not ask
The admeasurement of transept or of nave,
But let us perch like bird, where'er we choose,
And weave our fleeting song, as best we may.
Fain would I tell you, what a world of sound
Came from that pealing organ, when its soul
Mixed with the chanter's breath bade arch and aisle
Re-echo with celestial melody.
Its mighty tide bore off the weeds of care
And sands of vanity, and made the words,
Such common words as man doth speak to man,
All tame and trifling to the immortal soul.
I would not say devotion may not be
As heartfelt, in the humblest village church
That flecks the green; but yet, it seemeth fit,