XI. Undertones at Magdalen
Reading edition
Fair are the finer creature-sounds; of these Is Magdalen full: her bees, the while they drop Susurrant to the garth from weeds atop; And round the priestless Pulpit, auguries Of wrens in council from an hundred leas; And merry fish of Cherwell, fain to stop The water-plantain's way; and deer that crop Delicious herbage under choral trees. The cry for silver and gold in Christendom Without, threads not her silence and her dark. Only against the isolate Tower there break Low rhythmic murmurs of good men to come: Invasive seas of hushed approach that make Memorial music, would the ear but hark.