The western headland was black before the afternoon sun, and, far to sea, Lundy lay asleep in a golden haze. All before them the summer sea heaved between the capes, and along the sand, and broke in short crisp surf at their feet, gently moving the seaweed, the sand, and the shells.
"'St. Agnes' Eve,'" he said again. "Ah, yes! that is one of the poems written by Protestants which help to make men Catholics. Nine-tenths of their highest religious imagery is taken from Catholicism. The English poets have nothing to supply the place of it. Milton felt it, and wrote about it; yes, after ranging through all heathendom for images he comes home, to us at last:—
"'Let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloisters pale,
And love the high embowed roof,
With antique pillars massy proof,
And storied windows, richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.'"
"Yes; he could feel for that cloister life. The highest form of human happiness! We have the poets with us, at all events. Why, what is the most perfect bijou of a poem in the English language? Tennyson's 'St. Agnes.' He had to come to us."
The poor fellow looked across the sea, which was breaking in crisp ripples at his feet among the seaweed, the sand, and the shells; and as they listened, they heard him say, almost passionately—
"'Break up the heavens, oh, Lord! and far
Through all yon starlight keen
Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star
In raiment white and clean.'
"They have taken our churches from us, and driven us into Birmingham-built chapels. They sneer at us, but they forget that we built their arches and stained their glass for them. Art has revenged herself on them for their sacrilege by quitting earth in disgust. They have robbed us of our churches and our revenues, and turned us out on the world. Ay, but we are revenged. They don't know the use of them now they have got them; and the only men who could teach them, the Tractarians, are abused and persecuted by them for their superior knowledge."
So he rambled on, looking seaward; at his feet the surf playing with the sand, the seaweed, and the shells.
He made a very long pause, and then, when they thought that he was thinking of something quite different, he suddenly said—
"I don't believe it matters whether a man is buried in the chancel or out of it. But they are mad to discourage such a feeling as that, and not make use of it. Am I the worse man because I fancy that, when I lay there so quiet, I shall hear above my head the footfalls of those who go to kneel around the altar? What is it one of them says—