IN the Dean's porch a nest of clay <br /> With five small tentants may be seen; <br />Five solemn faces, each as wise <br /> As if its owner were a Dean. <br /> <br />Five downy fledglings in a row, <br /> Packed close, as in the antique pew <br />The school-girls are whose foreheads clear <br /> At the Venite shine on you. <br /> <br />Day after day the swallows sit <br /> With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound, <br />But dreaming and digesting much <br /> They grow thus wise and soft and round: <br /> <br />They watch the Canons come to dine, <br /> And hear, the mullion-bars across, <br />Over the fragrant fruit and wine <br /> Deep talk of rood-screen and reredos. <br /> <br />Her hands with field-flowers drenched, a child <br /> Leaps past in wind-blown dress and hair, <br />The swallows turn their heads askew -- <br /> Five judges deem that she is fair. <br /> <br />Prelusive touches sound within, <br /> Straightway they recognise the sign, <br />And, blandly nodding, they approve <br /> The minuet of Rubinstein. <br /> <br />They mark the cousins' schoolboy talk, <br /> (Male birds flown wide from minster bell), <br />And blink at each broad term of art, <br /> Binomial or bicycle. <br /> <br />Ah! downy soft ones, soft and warm, <br /> Doth such a stillness mask from sight <br />Such swiftness? can such peace conceal <br /> Passion and ecstasy of flight? <br /> <br />Yet somewhere 'mid your Easter suns, <br /> Under a white Greek architrave <br />At morn, or when the shaft of fire <br /> Lies large upon the Indian wave, <br /> <br />A sense of something dear gone by <br /> Will stir, strange longings thrill the heart <br />For a small world embowered close, <br /> Of which ye sometime were a part. <br /> <br />The dew-drenched flowers, the child's glad eyes <br /> Your joy inhuman shall control, <br />And in your wings a light and wind <br /> Shall move from the Maestro's soul.<br /><br />Edward Dowden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-cathedral-close/
