The Cathedral Poem by Bessie Rayner Parkes

FINE and strong
'T has stood for long,
Jetting up its slender lances
Far athwart the arched sky,
On whose tops the sunshine glances,
While the birds wing brightly by.
Fine and strong,
A sculptur'd song
Of forest hours,
Boughs, fruit and flowers.
The oak, the vine, the summer rose,
With buds and bells no herbist knows,
Twisting round each great stone column,
With its aspect high and solemn.
Fine and strong,
Thick trees among.
Statue fretted, each stern King
Girt about with royal ring
On his brow, and sceptre laden
With his royal arms engraven;
For all time,
A form sublime;
Never moving,
Grieving, loving,

Ever looking calmly down
From his niche as from a throne,
But one calmer than his own.
Carven niche,
Wrought in rich
Knotted angles interlacing,
Holds each fast in its enchasing,
Divided by a slender shaft.
Many a face grotesque has laugh'd
Ages from the pipes. A Virgin
Stands upon the porch's margin,
And the Child
Thus long has smil'd,
Praying the weary and the poor
To come unto his Father's door.
Many warriors hereabout
Lie, some with cross'd hands devout,
Under the blue sky, but others
The great inner aisle-roof covers.
Ah! within 'tis all divine,
With soften'd shine
From every pane
Whose gorgeous stain
Lies upon
The pavement stone,
Telling many an awful story
Of the martyr days divine;
While a dim torch-lighted glory
Streams from every pictur'd shrine;
And the anthem slowly rolls
Over the assembled souls,
With a free
Full melody.

God Almighty fram'd this church
In the artist's mind I think;
Beauty's fountains none may search,
Save who religiously will drink.
This for the Spirit
To inherit
Built he humbly,
Ay, and dumbly.
We can but say some man once thought
In this wise, nought else is known,
And with long endeavour wrought
His thoughts divinely into stone.