Matilda Betham-Edwards (1836–1919)

FOLLOWING across the moors a sound of bells,

We found a church, the smallest that could be,

Hid in a tamarisk-grove beside the sea,

And graves of shipwreck’d men set round with shells.

We enter’d when the prayers were almost done:

The little children nodded on their knees,

The preacher’s voice was drown’d in hum of bees

That danced about the lectern in the sun.

Awhile we knelt I let a pansy glide

Between her sweet grave face and open book,

And whisper’d as she turn’d with chiding look—

‘Heaven has not will’d, dear heart, that aught divide

Love pure as ours, nor blames if thought of me

Come like this flower between thy God and thee.’