Across the wet November
The church is bright with
And waiting Evensong.
A single bell with plaintive
Pleads louder than the stirring
The leafless lanes along.
It calls the choirboys from their
And villagers, the two or three,
Damp down the kitchen fire,
Let out the cat, and up the
Go paddling through the gentle
Of misty Oxfordshire.
How warm the many candles
Of Samuel Dowbiggin's
For this interior neat,
These high box pews of Georgian
Which screen us from the public
When we make answer meet;
How gracefully their shadow
On bold pilasters down the
And on the pulpit high.
The chandeliers would twinkle
As pre-Tractarian sermons
Doctrinal, sound and dry.
From that west gallery no
The viol and serpent tooted
The Tallis tune to Ken,
And firmly at the end of
The clerk below the pulpit
Would thunder out "Amen."But every wand'ring thought will
Before the noble
With carven swags array'd,
For there in letters all may
The Lord's Commandments,
Prayer and Creed,
And decently display'd.
On country morningd sharp and
The penitent in faith draw
And kneeling here
Partake the heavenly banquet
Of sacramental Wine and
And Jesus' presence know.
And must that plaintive bell in
Plead loud along the dripping lane?
And must the building fall?
Not while we love the church and
And of our charity will
Our much, our more, our all.
