We stood without--a pallid throng-- And as the flame leaped high and higher, Shrill winds we heard that rushed along And fanned the transports of the fire. The sky grew black; against the sky The blue and scarlet flames leaped high, And cries as of lost souls wailed by.
The church in glowing vesture stood, The lead ran down as it were wax, The great stones cracked and burned like wood, The wood caught fire and flamed like flax: A horrid chequered light and shade, By smoke and flame alternate made, Upon men's upturned faces played.
Down crashed the walls. Our lovely spire-- A blackened ruin--fell and lay. The very earth about caught fire, And flame-tongues licked along the clay. The fire did neither stay nor spare Till the foundations were laid bare To the hot, sickened, smoke-filled air.
There in the sight of men it lay, Our church that we had made so fair! A heap of ashes white and gray, With sparks still gleaming here and there. The sun came out again, and shone On all our loving work undone-- Our church destroyed, our labour gone!
Gone? Is it gone? God knows it, no! The hands that builded built aright: The men who loved and laboured so, Their church is built in heaven's height! In every stone a glittering gem, Gold in the gold Jerusalem-- The church their love built waits for them.
Through the glowing meadows aflame With buttercup gold I came To the green, still heart of the wood. A wood-pigeon cooed and cooed, The hazel-stems grew close, Like leaves round the heart of a rose, Round the still, green nest that I chose.
Then I gathered the bracken that grew In a fairy forest all round, And I laid it in heaps on the ground With grass and blossoms and leaves. I gathered the summer in sheaves, And pale, rare roses a few, And spread out a carpet meet For the touch of my lady's feet.
I waited; the wood was still; Only one little brown bird On a hazel swayed and stirred With the impulse of his song; And I waited, and time was long.
Then I heard a step on the grass In the path where the others pass, And a voice like a voice in a dream; And I saw a glory, a gleam, A flash of white through the green (Her arms and her gown are white); And the summer sighed her name As she and the sunshine came: O sun and blue sky and delight! O eyes and lips of my queen!