Classic Poem

I

Imperial Iffley, Cumnor bowered in green,
And Templar Sandford in the boatman's call,
And sweet-belled Appleton, and Elsfield wall
That dost upon adoring ivies lean;
Meek Binsey; Dorchester, where streams convene
Bidding on graves thy solemn shadow fall;
Clear Cassington, soaring perpetual,
Holton, and Hampton Poyle, and fanes between:

If one of all in your sad courts that come
Belovèd and disparted! be your own,
Kin to the souls ye had, while yet endures
Some memory of a great communion known
At home in quarries of old Christendom,—
Ah, mark him: he will lay his cheek to yours.

II

Is this the end? Is this the pilgrim's day
For dread, for dereliction, and for tears?
Rather, from grass and air and many spheres
In prophecy his heart is called away;
And under English eaves, more still than they,
Far-off, incoming, wonderful, he hears
The long-arrested, the believing years
Carry the sea-wall! Shall he, sighing, say:

“Farewell to Faith, for she is dead at best
Who had such beauty”? or, with spirit fain
To watch beside her darkened doors, go by
With a new psalm: “O banished Light so nigh!
Of them was I, who bore thee and who blest:
Even here remember me when thou shalt reign.”