WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.

Most beautiful! I gaze and gaze In silence on the glorious pile, And the glad thoughts of other days Come thronging back the while. To me dim memory makes more dear The perfect grandeur of the shrine; But if I stood a stranger here, The ground were still divine. Some awe the good and wise have felt, As reverently their feet have trod On any spot where man hath knelt To commune with his God; By sacred spring, or haunted well, Beneath the ruined temple’s gloom, Beside the feeble hermit’s cell, Or the false Prophet’s tomb. But when was high devotion graced With lovelier dwelling, loftier throne, Than here the limner’s art hath graced From the time-honoured stone? The Spirit here of worship seems To bind the soul in willing thrall, And heavenward hopes and holy dreams Come at her voiceless call; At midnight, when the lonely moon Looks from a vapour’s silvery fold; At morning, when the sun of June Crests the high towers with gold; For every change of hour and form Makes that fair scene more deeply fair, And dusk and daybreak, calm and storm, Are all Religion there.