Wilton Agnew Barrett

THE WHITE church on the hill

Looks over the little bay—

A beautiful thing on the hill

When the mist is gray;

When the hill looks old, and the air turns cold

With the dying day!

The white church on the hill—

A Greek in a Puritan town—

Was built on the brow of the hill

For John Wesley’s God’s renown,

And a conscience old set a steeple cold

On its Grecian crown.

In a storm of faith on the hill

Hands raised it over the bay.

When the night is clear on the hill,

It stands up strong and gray;

But its door is old, and the tower points cold

To the Milky Way.

The white church on the hill

Looks lonely over the town.

Dim to them under the hill

Is its God’s renown,

And its Bible old, and its creed grown cold,

And the letters brown.