The Soul's Quest and Other Poems

by Frederick George Scott

 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

 
’TWAS afternoon in winter, and the light
    Sloped softly up the walls, as day was done,
    In tremulous cloud-beams, while the westering sun
Blazoned with saints the columns opposite.
All sounds had died away; to left and right
5
    Was silence, tho’ I seemed to hear again
    The spirit-echoes of the last Amen
Far in the groinèd shadowings out of sight.

Oh! silence strange, so deep, so vast, profound;
    Ten ages slumber in the dust beneath,
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        And yet no voice,—no voice from those who trod
These aisles before and lie so still around.
    Oh! is it that they lose all voice in death,
        Seeing what they see, and being so close to God?

1885