Great clouds were arched abroad
  Like angels’ wings; returning beneath which,
  I lingered homewards.  All their forms had merged
  And loosened when my walk was ended; and,
  While yet I saw the sun a perfect disc,
  There was the moon beginning in the sky.

Pax Vobis

  ’Tis of the Father Hilary. 
    He strove, but could not pray:  so took
    The darkened stair, where his feet shook
  A sad blind echo.  He kept up
    Slowly.  ’Twas a chill sway of air
    That autumn noon within the stair,
  Sick, dizzy, like a turning cup. 
    His brain perplexed him, void and thin: 
    He shut his eyes and felt it spin;
    The obscure deafness hemmed him in. 
  He said:  “the air is calm outside.”

  He leaned unto the gallery
    Where the chime keeps the night and day: 
    It hurt his brain,—­he could not pray. 
  He had his face upon the stone: 
    Deep ’twixt the narrow shafts, his eye
    Passed all the roofs unto the sky
  Whose greyness the wind swept alone. 
    Close by his feet he saw it shake
    With wind in pools that the rains make: 
    The ripple set his eyes to ache. 
  He said, “Calm hath its peace outside.”

  He stood within the mystery
    Girding God’s blessed Eucharist: 
    The organ and the chaunt had ceased: 
  A few words paused against his ear,
    Said from the altar:  drawn round him,
    The silence was at rest and dim. 
  He could not pray.  The bell shook clear
    And ceased.  All was great awe,—­the breath
    Of God in man, that warranteth
    Wholly the inner things of Faith. 
  He said:  “There is the world outside.”

    Ghent:  Church of St. Bavon.

A Modern Idyl

  “Pride clings to age, for few and withered powers,
    Which fall on youth in pleasures manifold,
  Like some bright dancer with a crowd of flowers
    And scented presents more than she can hold: 

  “Or as it were a child beneath a tree,
    Who in his healthy joy holds hand and cap
  Beneath the shaken boughs, and eagerly
    Expects the fruit to fall into his lap.”

  So thought I while my cousin sat alone,
  Moving with many leaves in under tone,
  And, sheened as snow lit by a pale moonlight,
  Her childish dress struck clearly on the sight: 
  That, as the lilies growing by her side
  Casting their silver radiance forth with pride,
  She seemed to dart an arrowy halo round,
  Brightening the spring time trees, brightening the ground;
  And beauty, like keen lustre from a star,
  Glorified all the garden near and far. 
  The sunlight smote the grey and mossy wall
  Where, ’mid the leaves, the peaches one and all,
  Most like twin cherubim entranced above,
  Leaned their soft cheeks together, pressed in love.