Fit altars for who guards inviolate God's chosen seat, the sacred form of

man.

Doubtless his church will be no hospital For superannuate forms and mumping shams,

No parlor where men issue policies
Of life-assurance on the Eternal Mind,
Nor his religion but an ambulance
To fetch life's wounded and malinger-
ers in,

Scorned by the strong; yet he, unconscious heir

To the influence sweet of Athens and of Rome,

And old Judæa's gift of secret fire, Spite of himself shall surely learn to know

And worship some ideal of himself, Some divine thing, large-hearted, brotherly,

Net nice in trifles, a soft creditor, Pleased with his world, and hating only

Scarce saw the minster for the thoughts it stirred

Buzzing o'er past and future with vain quest.

Here once there stood a homely wooden church,

Which slow devotion nobly changed for this

That echoes vaguely to my modern steps.

By suffrage universal it was built,
As practised then, for all the country

came

From far as Rouen, to give votes for God,

Each vote a block of stone securely laid Obedient to the master's deep-mused plan.

Will what our ballots rear, responsible To no grave forethought, stand so long as this,

Delight like this the eye of after days Brightening with pride that here, at least, were men

Who meant and did the noblest thing they knew?

Can our religion cope with deeds like this?

We, too, build Gothic contract-shams, because

Our deacons have discovered that it

pays,

And pews sell better under vaulted roofs

Of plaster painted like an Indian: squaw. Shall not that Western Goth, of whom

we spoke,

So fiercely practical, so keen of eye, Find out, some day, that nothing pays but God,

Served whether on the smoke-shut battle-field,

In work obscure done honestly, or vote For truth unpopular, or faith maintained To ruinous convictions, or good deeds Wrought for good's sake, mindless of heaven or hell

Shall he not learn that all prosperity, Whose bases stretch not deeper than the sense,

Is but a trick of this world's atmosphere, A desert-born mirage of spire and dome, Or find too late, the Past's long lesson

missed,

And leaves a bitterish savor in the brain,

Tonic, it may be, not delectable,And turned, reluctant, for a parting look

At those old weather-pitted images Of bygone struggle, now so sternly calm.

About their shoulders sparrows had built nests,

And fluttered, chirping, from gray perch to perch,

Now on a mitre poising, now a crown, Irreverently happy. While I thought How confident they were, what careless hearts

Flew on those lightsome wings and shared the sun,

A larger shadow crossed; and, looking up,

I saw where, nesting in the hoary towers,

The sparrow-hawk slid forth on noiseless air,

With sidelong head that watched the joy below,

Grim Norman baron o'er this clan of Kelts.

Enduring Nature, force conservative, Indifferent to our noisy whims! Men

They reason that To-morrow must be

wise

Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday,

As if good days were shapen of themselves,

Not of the very lifeblood of men's souls;

Meanwhile, long-suffering, imperturbable,

Thou quietly complet'st thy syllogism, And from the premise sparrow here below

Draw'st sure conclusion of the hawk above,

Pleased with the soft-billed songster, pleased no less

With the fierce beak ofnatures aquiline.

Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away

In the Past's valley of Avilion, Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed,

Then to reclaim the sword and crown again!

Thrice beautiful to us; perchance less fair

To who possessed thee, as a mountain

And one, the Peaceful, yet to venture on,

Has been that future whereto prophets yearned

For the fulfilment of Earth's cheated hope,

Shall be that past which nerveless poets moan

As the lost opportunity of song.

O Power, more near my life than life itself

(Or what seems life to us in sense immured),

Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth,

Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive

Of sunshine and wide air and winged things

By sympathy of nature, so do I
Have evidence of Thee so far above,
Yet in and of me! Rather Thou the
root

Invisibly sustaining, hid in light,
Not darkness, or in darkness made by

us.

If sometimes I must hear good men debate

Of other witness of Thyself than Thou,
As if there needed any help of ours
To nurse Thy flickering life, that else
must cease,

Blown out, as 't were a candle, by men's breath,

My soul shall not be taken in their snare, To change her inward surety for their doubt

Muffled from sight in formal robes of proof:

While she can only feel herself through Thee,

I fear not Thy withdrawal; more I fear, Seeing, to know Thee not, hoodwinked

with dreams