ST. MICHAEL’S CHAPEL.
When the vexed hubbub of our world of gain
Roars round about me as I walk the street,
The myriad noise of Traffic, and the beat
Of Toil s incessant hammer, the fierce strain
Of Struggle hand to hand and brain to brain,
Ofttimes a sudden dream my sense will cheat,
The gaudy shops, the sky-piled roofs retreat,
And all at once I stand enthralled again
Within a marble minster over-seas.
I watch the solemn gold-stained gloom that creeps
To kiss an alabaster tomb, where sleeps
A lady twixt two knights stone effigies,
And every day in dusky glory steeps
Their sculptured slumber of five centuries.
LIFE AND ART.
NOT while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-soul to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then ; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
