When the music ceased in the outer darkness, it was taken up again in the interior of the Minster.
At last there came one stupendous united cry of all the singers, and in that cry even the organ-drone of the crypt, and the clamour of the brute stones of pavement and pillar, of wall and roof, broke into words articulate. And the words were these:
Per singulos dies, benedicimus Te.
Day by day: we magnify Thee,
And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.
As the wind of the summer changes into the sorrowful wail of the yellowing woods, so the strains of joyous worship changed into a wail of supplication; and as he caught the words, Thomas too raised his voice in wild entreaty:
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.
And then his senses failed him, and he sank to the ground in a long swoon.
When he came to himself all was still, and all was dark save for the little yellow flower of light in the sanctuary lamp.
As he crept back to his cell he saw with unsealed eyes how churlishly he had grudged God the glory of man's genius and the service of His dumb creatures, the metal of the hills, and the stone of the quarry, and the timber of the forest; for now he knew that at all seasons, and whether men heard the music or not, the ear of God was filled by day and by night with an everlasting song from each stone of the vast Minster:
We magnify Thee,
And we worship Thy name: ever world without end.