On its best braveness doth and sainthood frown,
Nay more the MASTER'S manifest pity--'wait,
Behold the palmgrove and the promised crown.
He suffers with thee, for thee.--Lo the Child!
Comfort thy heart; he certainly so smiled.'

Thus love and I wore through the winter time.
Then saw her demon blush Vesuvius try,
Then evil ghosts white from the awful prime,
Thrust up sharp peaks to tear the tender sky.
'No more to do but hear that English chime'
I to a kinsman wrote. He made reply,
'As home I bring my girl and boy full soon,
I pass through Evesham,--meet me there at noon.

'The bells your father loved you needs must hear,
Seek Oxford next with me,' and told the day.
'Upon the bridge I'll meet you. What! how dear
Soever was a dream, shall it bear sway
To mar the waking?'
I set forth, drew near,
Beheld a goodly tower, twin churches grey,
Evesham. The bridge, and noon. I nothing knew
What to my heart that fateful chime would do.

For suddenly the sweet bells overcame
A world unsouled; did all with man endow;
His yearning almost tell that passeth name
And said they were full old, and they were now
And should be; and their sighing upon the same