| |
| “GABBLE-GABBLE,… brethren,… gabble-gabble!” | |
| My window frames forest and heather. | |
| I hardly hear the tuneful babble, | |
| Not knowing nor much caring whether | |
| The text is praise or exhortation, | 5 |
| Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation. | |
| |
| Outside it blows wetter and wetter, | |
| The tossing trees never stay still. | |
| I shift my elbows to catch better | |
| The full round sweep of heathered hill. | 10 |
| The tortured copse bends to and fro | |
| In silence like a shadow-show. | |
| |
| The parson’s voice runs like a river | |
| Over smooth rocks. I like this church: | |
| The pews are staid, they never shiver, | 15 |
| They never bend or sway or lurch. | |
| “Prayer,” says the kind voice, “is a chain | |
| That draws down Grace from Heaven again.” | |
| |
| I add the hymns up, over and over, | |
| Until there’s not the least mistake. | 20 |
| Seven-seventy-one. (Look! there’s a plover! | |
| It’s gone!) Who’s that Saint by the lake? | |
| The red light from his mantle passes | |
| Across the broad memorial brasses. | |
| |
| It’s pleasant here for dreams and thinking, | 25 |
| Lolling and letting reason nod, | |
| With ugly serious people linking | |
| Sad prayers to a forgiving God…. | |
| But a dumb blast sets the trees swaying | |
| With furious zeal like madmen praying. | 30 |
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