Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/489



WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

25, 1881.

(The Day of Burial, in the Abbey, of, Dean of Westminster.)

! for a term so scant

Our shining visitant

Cheer'd us, and now is pass'd into the night?

Couldst thou no better keep, O Abbey old,

The boon thy dedication-sign foretold,31

The presence of that gracious inmate, light?—

A child of light appear'd;

Hither he came, late-born and long-desired,

And to men's hearts this ancient place endear'd;

What, is the happy glow so soon expired?

—Rough was the winter eve;

Their craft the fishers leave,

And down over the Thames the darkness drew.

One still lags last, and turns, and eyes the Pile

Huge in the gloom, across in Thorney Isle,

King Sebert's work, the wondrous Minster new.

—'Tis Lambeth now, where then

They moor'd their boats among the bulrush stems;

And that new Minster in the matted fen

The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.