'Beside those Sciences shall stand a choir
As fair as they; as tall; those sister Arts,
High daughters of celestial Harmony,
Diverse yet one, that bind the hearts of men
To steadfast Truth by Beauty's sinuous cords;
She that to marble changes mortal thought;
She that with rainbow girds the cloud of life;
She that above the streaming mist exalts
Rock-rooted domes of prayer; and she that rears
With words auguster temples. Happy thou
Healing that leper with thy virgin kiss!
A leprosy there is more direful, child !—
Therein the nations rot when flesh is lord
And spirit dies. Such ruin Arts debased
Gender, or, gendered long, exasperate more.

But thou, rejoice! From this pure centre Arts
Unfallen shall breathe their freshness through the land,

With kiss like thine healing a nation's wound
Year after year successive; listening, each,
My sister's organ music in the skies,

Prime Art that, challenging not eye but ear,
To Faith is nearest, and of Arts on earth
For that cause, living soul.'

That prophecy

Found its accomplishment. In later years,
There where of old the Oxen had their Ford,

The goodliest city England boasts arose,

Mirrored in sacred Isis; like that flood

Its youth for aye renewing. Convents first
Through stately groves levelled their placid gleam,
With cloisters opening dim on garden gay

Or moonlit lawn dappled by shadowing deer:
Above them soared the chapel's reverent bulk
With storied window whence, in hues of heaven,
Martyrs looked down, or Confessor, or Saint
On tomb of Founder with its legend meek
'Pro animâ orate.' Night and day
Mounted the Church's ever-varying song
Sustained on organ harmonies that well

Might draw once more to earth, with wings outspread
And heavenly face made heavenlier by that strain,

Cecilia's Angel. Of those convents first
Was Frideswida's, ruled in later years
By Canons Regular, later yet rebuilt
By him of York, that dying wept, alas,
'Had I but served my Maker as my king!'
To colleges those convents turned; yet still
The earlier inspiration knew not change :
The great tradition died not: near the bridge
From Magdalen's tower still rang the lark-like hymn
On May-day morn : high ranged in airy cells,
Facing the East, all Sciences, all Arts,

Yea, and with these all Virtues, imaged stood,
Best imaged stood in no ideal forms,

Craft unhistoric of some dreamer's brain,

But life-like shapes of plain heroic men

Who in their day had fought the fight of Faith,
Warriors and sages, poets, saints, and kings,
And earned their rest the long procession paced,
Up winding slow the college-girded street

To where in high cathedral slept the Saint,
Singing its 'Alma Redemptoris Mater,'

On August noons, what time the Assumption Feast
From purple zenith of the Christian heaven
Brightened the earth. That hour not bells alone
Chiming from countless steeples made reply:
Laughed out that hour high-gabled roof and spire;
Kindling shone out those Sciences, those Arts
Pagan one time, now confessors white-robed ;
And all the holy City gave response,

'Deus illuminatio mea est.' '

The motto of the University of Oxford.

223

THE BANQUET HALL OF WESSEX, OR THE KING WHO COULD SEE.

Kenwalk, King of Wessex, is a Pagan, but refuses to persecute Christians. He is dethroned by the Mercian King, and lives an exile in a Christian land. There he boasts that he never accords faith to what he hears, and believes only what he sees; yet, his eye being single, he sees daily more of the Truth. Wessex is delivered, and a great feast held at which the Pagan nobles, priests, and bards all conspire for the destruction of the Faith. Birinus, the bishop, having withstood them valiantly, Kenwalk declares himself a Christian. Birinus prophesies of England's greatest King.

KING CYNEGILS lay dead, who long and well

Had judged the realm of Essex. By his bier
The Christians standing smote their breasts, and said,
'Ill day for us :' but all about the house
Clustering in smiling knots of twos and threes,
The sons of Odin whispered, or with nods

Gave glad assent. Christ's bishop sent from Rome,

Birinus, to the king had preached for years

The Joyous Tidings. Cynegils believed,

And with him many; but the most refrained :
With these was Kenwalk; and, his father dead,
Kenwalk was king.

A valiant man was he,

A man of stubborn will, but yet at heart

Magnanimous and just. To one who said,

'Strike, for thine hour is come!' the king new-crowned Made answer, 'Never! Each man choose his path! My father chose the Christian-Odin's I.

I crossed my father oft a living man;

I war not on him dead.'

That giant hand

Which spared Religion ruled in all beside :

He harried forth the robbers from the woods,

And wrecked the pirates' ships. He burned with fire

A judge unjust, and thrice o'er Severn drave

The invading Briton. Lastly, when he found

That woman in his house intolerable,

From bed and realm he hurled her forth, though

crowned,

Ensuing thence great peace.

Not long that peace :

The Mercian king, her brother, heard her tale

With blackening brow. The shrill voice stayed at last, Doubly incensed the monarch made reply: