The Problem

I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; 
I love a prophet of the soul; 
And on my heart monastic aisles 
Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles; 
Yet not for all his faith can see 5 
Would I that cowl¨¨d churchman be.
 
Why should the vest on him allure  
Which I could not on me endure? 

Not from a vain or shallow thought 
His awful Jove young Phidias brought; 10 
Never from lips of cunning fell 
The thrilling Delphic oracle: 
Out from the heart of nature rolled 
The burdens of the Bible old; 
The litanies of nations came 15 
Like the volcano's tongue of flame  
Up from the burning core below ¡ª 
The canticles of love and woe; 
The hand that rounded Peter's dome  
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome 20 
Wrought in a sad sincerity; 
Himself from God he could not free; 
He builded better than he knew;¡ª 
The conscious stone to beauty grew.
 

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest 25 
Of leaves and feathers from her breast? 
Or how the fish outbuilt her shell  
Painting with morn each annual cell? 
Or how the sacred pine tree adds 
To her old leaves new myriads? 30 
Such and so grew these holy piles  
Whilst love and terror laid the tiles.
 
Earth proudly wears the Parthenon  
As the best gem upon her zone; 
And Morning opes with haste her lids 35 
To gaze upon the Pyramids; 
O'er England's abbeys bends the sky  
As on its friends with kindred eye; 
For out of Thought's interior sphere  
These wonders rose to upper air; 40 
And Nature gladly gave them place  
Adopted them into her race  
And granted them an equal date 
With Andes and with Ararat.
 

These temples grew as grows the grass; 45 
Art might obey but not surpass.
 
The passive Master lent his hand 
To the vast soul that o'er him planned; 
And the same power that reared the shrine  
Bestrode the tribes that knelt within.
 50 
Ever the fiery Pentecost 
Girds with one flame the countless host  
Trances the heart through chanting choirs  
And through the priest the mind inspires.
 

The word unto the prophet spoken 55 
Was writ on tables yet unbroken; 
The word by seers or sibyls told  
In groves of oak or fanes of gold  
Still floats upon the morning wind  
Still whispers to the willing mind.
 60 
One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world hath never lost.
 
I know what say the fathers wise ¡ª 
The Book itself before me lies ¡ª 
Old Chrysostom best Augustine 65 
And he who blent both in his line  
The younger Golden Lips or mines  
Taylor the Shakespeare of divines.
 
His words are music in my ear  
I see his cowl¨¨d portrait dear; 70 
And yet for all his faith could see  
I would not this good bishop be.
 

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