WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Joaquin Miller
he Abbey broods beside the turbid Thames; - Her mother heart is filled with memories;
- Her every niche is stored with storied names;
- They move before me like a mist of seas.
- I am confused, and made abash'd by these
- Most kingly souls, grand, silent, and severe.
- I am not equal, I should sore displease
- The living....dead. I dare not enter; drear
- And stain'd in storms of grander days all things appear.
- I go! but shall I not return again
- When art has taught me gentler, kindlier skill,
- And time has given force and strength of strain ?
- I go! O ye that dignify and fill
- The chronicles of earth! I would instil
- Into my soul somehow the atmosphere
- Of sanctity that here usurps the will;
- But go; I seek the tomb of one a peer
- Of peers whose dust a fool refused to cherish here.