Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams Yet in the go-cart. Patience! give it time In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks, Among six boys, head under head, and look'd No little lily-handed Baronet he, A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, A raiser of huge melons and of pine, A patron of some thirty charities, A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed The long line of the approaching rookery swerve More joyful than the city-roar that hails Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs their parks some dozen times a year Give up To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried, I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, Perchance upon the future man: the walls Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. THE END. N |