Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Lionel Johnson (1867–1902)

The Church of a Dream

SADLY the dead leaves rustle in the whistling wind,

Around the weather-worn, gray church, low down the vale:

The Saints in glorious vesture shake before the gale;

The glorious windows shake, where still they dwell enshrined;

Old Saints by long dead, shrivelled hands long since designed:

There still, although the world autumnal be, and pale,

Still in thin golden vesture the old Saints prevail;

Alone with Christ, desolate else, left by mankind.

Only one ancient Priest offers the Sacrifice,

Murmuring holy Latin immemorial:

Swaying with tremulous hands the old censer full of spice,

In gray, sweet incense clouds; blue, sweet clouds mystical:

To him, in place of men, for he is old, suffice

Melancholy remembrances and vesperal.