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.
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