POETRY.

THE OLD VILLAGE CHURCH.

HERE, on a gently swelling perch,

Backed by a straggling strip of wood, Half in the village stands the church, Half in a sacred solitude :— A. square tower with a mellow chime, Grey walls, low doors, and, long and thin, The gargoyles, on whose faces time Has left the quaint and knavish grin.

The world that saw the first stone laid Was younger by five hundred years, And Chaucer's parson might have prayed Here, might have preached to puzzled ears.

The obscure generations sleep Deep in the churchyard : higher names Within, the brasses strive to keep Under the carven knights and dames.

Old watcher that hast seen the stream Of village life roll smoothly by, A long, slow pageant, like a dream, That changes ever silently,

While thou remain'st un- changed there;—

To thee, we think, on days of grace A crowd a ghosts must still re- pair To thee, the one familiar face Left in the spot wherein their days Were spent : the rest would seem estranged.

The village life and all its ways, Only the church would not be changed.

All else of that past life is dim, We only know they wor- shipped thus, And find in august prayer and hymn A living bond 'twist them and us.

Now under these old walls again Our lips repeat the litanies That rose from living hearts of men Throughout the misty cen- turies.

And thus it is without a doubt That, when our low responses rise, A company of ghosts steal out And join their voiceless notes and sighs.

The aisles that echo back our burst

Of music mingle notes more faint,—

The clinging ghosts of sounds, since first Was sung here praise of God or saint.

The sombre space seems bright with stuffs And fineries, doublets, breeches, coats, Kirtles and stomachers and ruffs, And patches and hoop-petti- coats. We see the dames and men who played

Great parts in those small worlds now past,—

Types differing only by a shade, Each somewhat finer than the last.

And humble men, all labour chime Whom every generation bore spot tent stayed, and Time Save when the Sabbath bells in bent, Wake them ; then only to this To dig and delve, to live con- They come, where change is Even as their fathers lived Has mellowed all and ravaged That haunted pool and tree and heath.

Scared by the modern light, the dead Leave not their narrow home beneath