Peace be with the little red-roofed church out yonder,
With its quiet English village gathered round;
With shade of great beech-trees on the grave-mounds under,
And leaves of the Autumn over all the ground!
There go the rooks at even homeward flying!
The sweet sense of home lies over all that land;
The glow is on the tower of the daylight dying,
And lovers in the shadow are walking hand-in-hand.
Here comes no voice from the middle world to move them,
All the year round no memorable thing;
Yet the great skies arch as beautiful above them,
All the year through there are birds with them that sing.
Ah! well with you who calm and little knowing,
Here in submission to your uneventful days,
Leave the mad world to its coming and its going,
Safe with God’s shadow on your evening ways!
A DIRGE FOR LOVE.
“What is this pitiful song ye sing,
Shades of the passing hours?
What is this beautiful young dead thing,
Borne on a bier of flowers?”
“This is dead Love who, all night through,
Beat at the fast-closed door;
Wept his heart out waiting for you,
Now he will beat no more!
“Here he dwelt for a night and day,
Longer he might not wait;
Never again will he pass this way,
Therefore we sing ‘too late!’ ”
“Ah, but the door of my heart within,
Was it not alway wide?
Had he not wings to have entered in,
Why did he beat outside?”