Scenes and Hymns of Life, with Other Religious Poems/Old Church in an English Park
For other versions of this work, see Sonnets, Devotional and Memorial. XIV. Old Church in an English Park.
XIV.
OLD CHURCH IN AN ENGLISH PARK
Crowning a flowery slope it stood alone
In gracious sanctity. A bright rill wound,
Caressingly, about the holy ground;
And warbled, with a never-dying tone,
Amidst the tombs. A hue of ages gone
Seemed, from that ivied porch, that solemn gleam
Of tower and cross, pale quivering on the stream,
O'er all th' ancestral woodlands to be thrown,
And something yet more deep. The air was fraught
With noble memories, whispering many a thought
Of England's fathers; loftily serene,
They that had toil'd, watch'd, struggled, to secure,
Within such fabrics, worship free and pure,
Reigned there, the o'ershadowing spirits of the scene.