“I know a fellow who would do some verses, I think,” said Warrington. “Let me take the plate home in my pocket: and send to my chambers in the morning for the verses. You’ll pay well, of course.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Hack; and Warrington, having despatched his own business, went home to Mr. Pen, plate in hand.
“Now, boy, here’s a chance for you. Turn me off a copy of verses to this.”
“What’s this? A Church Porch—A lady entering it, and a youth out of a wine-shop window ogling her.—What the deuce am I to do with it?”
“Try,” said Warrington. “Earn your livelihood for once, you who long so to do it.”
“Well, I will try,” said Pen.
“And I’ll go out to dinner,” said Warrington, and left Mr. Pen in a brown study.
When Warrington came home that night, at a very late hour, the verses were done. “There they are,” said Pen. “I’ve screwed ’em out at last. I think they’ll do.”
“I think, they will,” said Warrington, after reading them; they ran as follows:—
The Church Porch
Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Sometimes I hover,
And at the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.
The Minster bell tolls out
Above the city’s rout
And noise and humming
They’ve stopp’d the chiming bell,
I hear the organ’s swell
She’s coming, she’s coming!
My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither,
With modest eyes downcast.
She comes—she’s here—she’s past.
May Heaven go with her!
Kneel undisturb’d, fair saint,
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly.
I will not enter there,
To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.
But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,
Lingering a minute,
Like outcast spirits, who wait
And see through Heaven’s gate
Angels within it.