PRIMITIVE SAXON CLERGY

By William Wordsworth

How beautiful your presence, how benign,

Servants of God! who not a thought will share

With the vain world; who, outwardly as bare

As winter trees, yield no fallacious sign

That the firm soul is clothed with fruit divine!

Such Priest, when service worthy of his care

Has called him forth to breathe the common air,

Might seem a saintly Image from its shrine

Descended:— happy are the eyes that meet

The Apparition; evil thoughts are stayed

At his approach, and low-bowed necks entreat

A benediction from his voice or hand;

Whence grace, through which the heart can understand,

And vows, that bind the will, in silence made.