"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Chapter 43: PASSING THE MINSTER.

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About This Book

The collection gathers sonnets and shorter lyrics that observe English locales, chiefly London and Oxford, and move between public bustle and quiet precincts. Urban pieces register fog, crowds, docks, and social inequality alongside civic and ecclesiastical history; Oxford poems and pastoral lyrics dwell on college gardens, ancient churches, and memory. The verse balances formal sonnet discipline with lyrical interludes, employing vivid sensory detail and reflective, often elegiac tone. Recurring concerns include transience, the persistence of historical presence, spiritual consolation, and a moral awareness of poverty and beauty.

PASSING THE MINSTER.

Praise to thine awful beauty, praise

And peace, O warden of my ways!

Bid o’er the brow to thee I raise,

Eternal unction fall.

Nobly and equally thou must

Take adoration of my dust,

And unto altitudes august

Thy low-born lover call.

Bless me; forget me not: a lone

Clear Amen through thine arches blown,

A heartstring of that Hope, a stone

Fixed also in that Wall.