from oblivion.

The article on Amiens, intended originally as the first of a series, is
included in this volume as an illustration of Morris's power to clothe
things actual with the glamour of Romance.




THE STORY OF THE UNKNOWN CHURCH


I was the master-mason of a church that was built more than six hundred
years ago; it is now two hundred years since that church vanished from
the face of the earth; it was destroyed utterly,--no fragment of it was
left; not even the great pillars that bore up the tower at the cross,
where the choir used to join the nave. No one knows now even where it
stood, only in this very autumn-tide, if you knew the place, you would
see the heaps made by the earth-covered ruins heaving the yellow corn
into glorious waves, so that the place where my church used to be is as
beautiful now as when it stood in all its splendour. I do not remember
very much about the land where my church was; I have quite forgotten the
name of it, but I know it was very beautiful, and even now, while I am
thinking of it, comes a flood of old memories, and I almost seem to see
it again,--that old beautiful land! only dimly do I see it in spring and
summer and winter, but I see it in autumn-tide clearly now; yes, clearer,
clearer, oh! so bright and glorious! yet it was beautiful too in spring,
when the brown earth began to grow green: beautiful in summer, when the
blue sky looked so much bluer, if you could hem a piece of it in between
the new white carving; beautiful in the solemn starry nights, so solemn