Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Spain, Portugal, Belgium, and Holland: Vols. XIV–XV. 1876–79.
Antwerp Cathedral
By Henry Alford (1810–1871)B
Lightly, with scornful or with pitying gaze,
Viewing these worshippers, who on the days
When English fanes are silent as the dead,
Throng kneeling, where yon feeble candles shed
Their flickering light: far rather would I raise
My hands in prayer with them, or join in praise,
Or sit beneath their shrines in humble dread.
Because our being’s end is furthered best
Not by the pride of reason, most unjust
When it condemneth,—but by self-distrust,
By mildness, and submission, and arrest
Of sudden judgment: thus we learn to feel
That all are one, and have one wound to heal.