magdalen college chapel
Posted in Poetry | By tim |
a poem written in 1927 by a family friend, Helen Lamb
If there were Gods to worship I might think
that here was one of their last sanctuaries.
What spirits from the long-forgotten years
crowd, in the shadows far above our heads,
watching our faces in the candle light?
What do you see, oh you who once were men?
The unchang‘d suffering of the human heart,
The coy display of woman‘s vanity,
The hurried fervour of faint piety,
And sometimes in an isolated face
the calm transfiguration of a soul,
lifted above all trivialities
to rest a moment in eternity?
Softly the voices mount to the dim roof
like bird-notes when the breathless forest waits
for the soft-footed coming of the dusk.
And, spirits, do you feel again the spell
of centuries of music echoing here?
Then might I say you worshipped -
For were there Gods to worship I must think
They would be here.
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