'How true thy judgment is! how just thy tongue!
What hinders, O my Father, but that Thames,
Huge river from the forests rolled by God,
Should image, like that Tyber, churches twain,
Honouring those Princes of the Apostles' Band?
King Ethelbert, my uncle, built Saint Paul's;
Saint Peter's Church be mine!'

An hour's advance

Left them in thickets tangled. Low the ground,
Well-nigh by waters clipt, a savage haunt
With briar and bramble thick, and 'Thorny Isle'
For that cause named. Sebert around him gazed,
A maiden blush upon him thus he spake :
'I know this spot; I stood here once, a boy :
'Twas winter then the swoll'n and turbid flood
Rustled the sallows. Far I fled from men :

A youth had done me wrong, and vengeful thoughts
Burned in my heart: I warred with them in vain :
I prayed against them; yet they still returned:
O'erspent at last, I cast me on my knees
And cried, "Just God, if Thou despise my prayer,
Faithless, thence weak, not less remember well
How many a man in this East Saxon land
Stands up this hour, in wood, or field, or farm,
Like me sore tempted, but with loftier heart :
To these be helpful-yea, to one of these!"

ITY

And lo, the wrathful thoughts, like routed fiends,

Left me, and came no more!'

Discoursing thus,

The friends a moment halted in a space

Where stood a flowering thorn. Adown it trailed
In zigzag curves erratic here and there

Long lines of milky bloom, like rills of foam
Furrowing the green back of some huge sea wave

Refluent from cliffs. Ecstatic minstrelsy

Swelled from its branches. Birds as thick as leaves
Thronged them; and whether joy was theirs that hour
Because the May had come, or joy of love,

Or tenderer gladness for their young new-fledged,
So piercing was that harmony, the place

Eden to Sebert looked, while brake and bower
Shone like the Tree of Life. 'What minster choir,'
The Bishop cried, 'could better chant God's praise?
Here shall your church ascend :—its altar rise
Where yonder thorn tree stands!' The old man spake;
Yet in him lived a thought unbreathed: How oft
Have trophies risen to blazon deeds accursed!

Angels this church o'er-winging, age on age

Shall see that boy at prayer!'

In peace, in war,

Daily the work advanced. The youthful King
Kneeling, himself had raised the earliest sod,

Made firm the corner stone.

Whate'er of gold

Sun-ripened harvests of the royal lands

Yielded from Thames to Stour, or tax and toll
From quays mast-thronged to loud-resounding sea,
Save what his realm required by famine vexed
At times, or ravage of the Mercian sword,
Went to the work. His Queen her jewels brought,
Smiling, huge gift in slenderest hands up-piled;
His thanes their store; the poor their labour free.
Some clave the quarry's ledges: from its depths
Some haled the blocks; from distant forests some
Dragged home the oak-beam on the creaking wain :
Alas, that arms in noble tasks so strong

Should e'er have sunk in dust!

Ere ten years passed

Saint Peter's towers above the high-roofed streets

Smiled on Saint Paul's. That earlier church had risen

Where stood, in Roman days, Apollo's fane:

Upon a site to Dian dedicate

Now rose its sister. Erring Faith had reached

In those twin Powers that ruled the Day and Night,

To Wisdom witnessing and Chastity,

Her loftiest height, and perished. Phoenix-like,
From ashes of dead rites and truths abused

Now soared unstained Religion.

What remained?

The Consecration. On its eve, the King

Held revel in its honour, solemn feast,

And wisely-woven dance, where beauty and youth, Through loveliest measures moving, music-winged, And winged not less by gladness, interwreathed Brightness with brightness, glance turned back on glance,

And smile on smile-a courtseying graciousness

Of stateliest forms that, winding, sank or rose

As if on heaving seas. In groups apart

Old warriors clustered. Eadbald discussed

And Snorr, that truce with Wessex signed, and said, 'Fear nought: it cannot last!' A shadow sat That joyous night upon one brow alone,

Redwald's, East Anglia's King. In generous youth He, guest that time with royal Ethelbert,

Had gladly bowed to Christ. From shallowest soil
Faith springs apace, but springs to die. Returned
To plains of Ely, all that sweetness past

Seemed but a dream while scornful spake his wife,
Upon whose brow beauty from love divorced

Made beauty's self unbeauteous: 'Lose-why not?—
Thwarting your liegeful subjects, lose at will

Your Kingdom; you that might have reigned ere now Bretwalda of the Seven!' In hour accursed

The weak man with his Faith equivocated:

Fraudful, beneath the self-same roofs he raised

Altars to Christ and idols. By degrees

That Truth he mocked forsook him. Year by year
His face grew dark, and barbed his tongue though smooth,

Manner and mind like grass-fields after thaw,

Silk-soft above, yet iron-hard below:

Spleenful that night at Sebert's blithe discourse
He answered thus, with seeming-careless eye
Wandering from wall to roof:

Would it had rested upon firmer ground,

Adorned some airier height: its towers are good,
Though dark the stone: three quarries white have I ;
You might have used them gratis had you willed:
At Ely, Elmham, and beside the Cam

Where Felix rears even now his cloistral Schools,
I trust to build three churches soon: my Queen,
That seconds still my wishes, says, "Beware
Lest overhaste, your people still averse,
Frustrate your high intent." A woman's wit—
Yet here my wife is wiser than her wont.

I miss your Bishop: grandly countenanced he,
Save for that mole. He shuns our revel :—ay!
Monastic virtue never feels secure

Save when it skulks in corners !' As he spake,
Despite that varnish on his brow clear-cut,
Stung by remembrance, from the tutored eye