491

The Church by the Sea.

I.

THAT spirit of wit, whose quenchless ray

To wakening England Holland lent, In whose frail wasted body lay

The orient and the occident,

II.

Still wandering in the night of time, Nor yet conceiving dawn should be, A pilgrim with a gift of rhyme, Sought out Our Lady by the Sea.

III.

Along the desolate downs he rode,

And pondered on God's mystic name, Till with his beads and votive ode, To Walsingham Erasmus came.

IV.

He found the famous chapel there,
Unswept, unwindowed, undivine,
And the bleak gusts of autumn air
Blew sand across the holy shrine.

V.

Two tapers in a spicy mist

Scarce lit the jewelled heaps of gold,

As pilgrim after pilgrim kissed

The relics that were bought and sold.

VI.

A greedy Canon still beguiled

The wealthy at his wicket-gate, And o'er his shining tonsure smiled A Virgin doubly desecrate.

VII.

The pattered prayers, the incense swung,
The embroidered throne, the golden stall,
The precious gifts at random flung,-
And North Sea sand across it all!

VIII.

He mocked, that spirit of matchless wit;

He mourned the rite that warps and seres:

And seeing no hope of health in it,

He laughed lest he should break in tears.

IX.

And we, if still our reverend fanes

Lie open to the salt-sea deep,

If flying sand our choir profanes,

Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep?

X.

We toll the bell, we throng the aisle,
We pay a wealth in tithe and fee,
We wreathe the shrine, and all the while
Our Church lies open to the sea.

XI.

The brackish wind that stirs the flame,

And fans the painted saints asleep, From heaven above it never came, But from the starless Eastern deep.

XII.

The storm is rising o'er the sea,

The long bleak windward line is grey,

And when it rises, how shall we

And our weak tapers fare that day?

XIII.

Perchance amid the roar and crack

Of starting beams we yet shall stand; Perchance our idols shall not lack

Deep burial in the shifting sand.

EDMUND W. GOSSE.

493

Damocles.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "FOR PERCIVAL."

CHAPTER V.

ON THE CLIFF.

"Can I not say a word shall do you good?"

JAUGUST by the sea. The

words are enough to call up a picture of boats, bathing machines, donkeys, children, mammas, nursemaids, seaweed, shells, wooden spades, and parasols, all gathered together on a strip of sand under a hot sky. The seaside place which Miss Whitney had chosen for a three weeks' stay had its share of most, if not all, of these, but a comparatively small share, being a quiet little village, not very widely known. As it could not be reached by rail, it

escaped the hordes of excursionists who are attracted from afar by the promise of a day at the seaside. A few came occasionally by boat from a fashionable town across the bay, but, as a rule, the lesser place was left to its regular visitors.

Rachel Conway had left the shore, followed an often-trodden upward path, and now sat near the edge of the cliff, gazing seaward. The dog's-eared, untidy novel, which lay on the grass beside her, might be supposed to represent amusement by any one who had never looked into it. Rachel rather suspected that its shabbiness was due less to study than to the resentful carelessness of would-be readers. ( (What power presides over the choice of books in seaside libraries? Blind chance must surely produce happier results.) Luckily the dulness of the story was of little importance in this case, as Miss Conway was dreamily