I HEARD him preach in Oxford years ago, <br />A snowy-haired and tender-faced apostle. <br />I watched the beech against the window blow, <br />And listened to the throstle. <br />And still a waving branch to memory brings <br />Those deepset eyes and drooping lids as pressed <br />Upon too much by earthly visionings <br />And wistful for their rest. <br />Still in the flutings of a thrush will sound <br />Words that upon us then but lightly fell, <br />Because they were as simple and profound <br />As some brief parable <br />Told by the Master to the hungry folk, <br />While the disciples murmured, but the foam <br />Wrote it again on Patmos, and it spoke <br />Above the rage of Rome.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/george-macdonald/
