From Solway Frith to Dover Strand
Its fascinations starred the land,
Not only on cathedral walls
But upon courts and castle halls,
Till every edifice in the isle
Was patterned to no other style,
And till, long having played its part,
The curtain fell on Gothic art.
—Well: when in Wessex on your rounds,
Take a brief step beyond its bounds,
And enter Gloucester: seek the quoin
Where choir and transept interjoin,
And, gazing at the forms there flung
Against the sky by one unsung—
The ogee arches transom-topped,
The tracery-stalks by spandrels stopped,
Petrified lacework—lightly lined
On ancient massiveness behind—
Muse that some minds so modest be
As to renounce fame’s fairest fee,