POETRY.

THEN AND NOW.—THE NORTH DOWNS, 1899.

HAVE you not heard of the road that we long ago travell'd with Chaucer, Here on the Pilgrim's Way, spanning the length of the Downs ?

Have you not seen these yews, still green in their secular glory, Marking the course of the route—older than Edward the Third ?

Well, we are with them now, on the height that faces St. Martha's, Thus on a summer eve watching the sunset awhile ; Watching the golden moon, as she rises afar to the eastward, Over the Silent Pool, over the hollows of Shere.

Look toward the crest of the hills, to the south, where breezes of ocean Blow from the Sussex Weald, savouring still of the sea ; Look to the north, far down, where sheep-bells heard in the valley

Tell of an order'd peace, safe in some sheltering farm : Yes, 'tis a noble view ! But more than the beauty of Nature, More than the things we see, lives in this quiet around; Years that are gone long ago, and centuries dead and departed, Rise through our searching souls into their places again.

Ah, what a long, long line of lofty and storied emotion Glows through those gaunt old trees, out of a far-away

world!

Barely we once heard Mass, even we, in that grand grey chapel ?

Surely we rode past here, sauntering on to the shrine ? Surely we went in array from the 'Tabard' with bluff Harry Bailey, Laughing and loitering on, right to the banks of the Stour?

Yes, we have done all that ; content with an outward devotion,

Kissing the sacred bones, offering jewels and gold ; Then, with a sigh of relief, with a boyish and airy enjoyment, Cantering gaily away, happy and shriven, and whole. But—what is this ? We are here, with another century closing, Here on the height once more : this is a Pilgrimage too ! For we are moving along, not leisurely now, nor together, But with our hot fierce hearts hurried and hostile and hard : Pilgrims—and where is the shrine, the ultimate goal of our journey?

Where is our place of rest? Where is the saint we adore? Not on the banks of Stour, for the tomb of k Becket is wasted ; Gone are the sacred bones, gone are the jewels and gold : Gone ? Aye, and well may they go ! We are not now boys, to revere them ;

We are mature sad men, born to an elderly age; Struggling and stumbling along, with fervid frantic endeavour, Each in his own wild way seeking a shrine of his own.

Fools! When the thing we seek needs never a journey to find it ; Fools! When the pearl of price gleams at our own fireside; Fools, when the God of our health is as ready as ever to guide us, Still in the same old words telling us what to adore !

For Be is with us flow: in the simpler creed of St. Martha's, Or in the open air, vibrating yet to His word; With us, around and above ; in the snows and the tempests of winter, And when the greening turf brightens and blooms into spring; And in the summer days, in the lovelier leafage of autumn; And in His own still voice, everywhere calling us Home.

Armittat Minim