Page:A midsummer holiday and other poems (IA midsummerholiday00swin).pdf/188



'Take heed, ye unwise among the people: O ye fools, when will ye understand?' From pulpit or choir beneath the steeple, Though the words be fierce, the tones are bland. But a louder than the Church's echo thunders In the ears of men who may not choose but hear; And the heart in him that hears it leaps and wonders, With triumphant hope astonished, or with fear. For the names whose sound was power awaken Neither love nor reverence now nor dread; Their strongholds and shrines are stormed and taken, Their kingdom and all its works are dead.