Had been as short as thine!
Longfellow and Brooks
Of all the marbles that fill Westminster Abbey with the glory of great memories, says Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, not one speaks a language so eloquent as the bust of Longfellow. For it announces itself as a pledge of brotherhood recorded in the most sacred shrine of a great nation with which we have sometimes been at variance, but to whose home and race our affection must ever cling, so long as blood is thicker than water. The seemingly feeble link of a sentiment is often stronger than the adamantine chain of a treaty.
It is the province of literature, especially poetry, which deals with the sentiments common to humanity, to obliterate the geographical and political boundaries of nations, and make them one in feeling. The beautiful tribute of Englishmen to an American poet, giving him a place in their proudest mausoleum, by the side of their bravest, best, noblest, greatest, is a proof of friendship and esteem so genuine that it overleaps all the barriers of nationality.
To this tribute to Longfellow is now added a gracious memorial, by English people, of Phillips Brooks, in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, the parish church of the House of Commons. Dean Farrar, in speaking of the bishop’s unique personality, said he was “of all modern ecclesiastics the most famous.” The memorial window, remarkable for its highly artistic features, presents several impressive scenes, with texts representing the joyful, cheerful side of Christianity. Underneath are the words, “In Memory of Phillips Brooks, D.D., Bishop of Massachusetts, honored and beloved, A. D. 1894,” and again, below this, is a quatrain in Latin elegiacs, written by the late Dr. Benson, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury:
Fervidus eloquio, sacra fortissimus arte,
Suadendi, gravibus vera Deumque Viris,
Quæreris ad sedem populari voce regendam,
Quæreris—ad sedem rapte Domumque Dei.
Thus freely Englished by the son of the writer: