COPYING ARCHITECTURE IN AN OLD MINSTER

How smartly the quarters of the hour march by

That the jack-o’ - clock never forgets;

Ding-dong; and before I have traced a cusp's eye,

Or got the true twist of the ogee over,

A double ding-dong ricochetts.

Just so did he clang here before I came,

And so will he clang when I'm gone

Through the Minster's cavernous hollows — the same

Tale of hours never more to be will he deliver

To the speechless midnight and dawn!

I grow to conceive it a call to ghosts,

Whose mould lies below and around.

Yes; the next “Come, come,” draws them out from their posts,

And they gather, and one shade appears, and another,

As the eve-damps creep from the ground.

See — a Courtenay stands by his quatre-foiled tomb,

And a Duke and his Duchess near;

And one Sir Edmund in columned gloom,

And a Saxon king by the presbytery chamber;

And shapes unknown in the rear.

Maybe they have met for a parle on some plan

To better ail-stricken mankind;

I catch their cheepings, though thinner than

The overhead creak of a passager's pinion

When leaving land behind.

Or perhaps they speak to the yet unborn,

And caution them not to come

To a world so ancient and trouble-torn,

Of foiled intents, vain lovingkindness,

And ardours chilled and numb.

They waste to fog as I stir and stand,

And move from the arched recess,

And pick up the drawing that slipped from my hand,

And feel for the pencil I dropped in the cranny

In a moment's forgetfulness.