Hail! holy triumph of time-chastened piles;
Your lofty music thrills along the soul;
Welcome! the sunbeams, glistening through your aisles,
Tinging their gold with history’s coloured roll:
Young voices move your melodies, young limbs
White-robÈd, pluck the buds of innocence.
Mild silver beckons to the light which swims
Evolved through darkness, fashioning forms for sense.
But I love best, when faith moves dreary self,
Toppling its pride and pedestal to the ground;
Most then in Being lose the world, that elf,
Harbouring their errors in a happier sound:
What matters whether Heaven exist or no?
Their prayers find Heaven, or lose the sense of woe.