Benedictio Domini

Without, the sullen noises of the street!
The voice of London, inarticulate,
Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet
The silent blessing of the Immaculate.

Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers,
Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell.
While through the incense-laden air there stirs
The admonition of a silver bell.

Dark is the church, save where the altar stands,
Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light,
Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands
The one true solace of man's fallen plight.

Strange silence here: without, the sounding street
Heralds the world's swift passage to the fire:
O Benediction, perfect and complete!
When shall men cease to suffer and desire?

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Ernest Christopher Dowson, a notable English poet of the late 19th century, was associated with the Decadent movement. Renowned for his melancholic and evocative verse, he significantly influenced 20th-century literature. Despite struggling with poverty and alcoholism, Dowson's work, including the famous phrase "days of wine and roses," endures. He faced immense personal tragedies, losing both parents within a year, which plunged him into deeper despair. Dowson's legacy persists through his deeply moving poetry that captures the fragility of life and love.

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Soli Cantare Periti Arcades

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Ad Domnulam Suam

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

In A Breton Cemetery

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae

Ernest Christopher Dowson, Simple Poetry

English

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Through what long heaviness, assayed in what strange fire,
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Despising the world's wisdom and the world's desire,
Which from the body of this death bring no release?

Within their austere walls no voices penetrate;
A sacred silence only, as of death, obtains;
Nothing finds entry here of loud or passionate;
This quiet is the exceeding profit of their pains.

From many lands they came, in divers fiery ways;
Each knew at last the vanity of earthly joys;
And one was crowned with thorns, and one was crowned with bays,
And each was tired at last of the world's foolish noise.

It was not theirs with Dominic to preach God's holy wrath,
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For Four Guilds: IV. The Bell-Ringers

The angels are singing like birds in a tree
In the organ of good St. Cecily:
And the parson reads with his hand upon
The graven eagle of great St. John:
But never the fluted pipes shall go
Like the fifes of an army all a-row,
Merrily marching down the street
To the marts where the busy and idle meet;
And never the brazen bird shall fly
Out of the window and into the sky,
Till men in cities and shires and ships
Look up at the living Apocalypse.

But all can hark at the dark of even
The bells that bay like the hounds of heaven,
Tolling and telling that over and under,
In the ways of the air like a wandering thunder,
The hunt is up over hills untrod:
For the wind is the way of the dogs of God:
From the tyrant's tower to the outlaw's den
Huntin...

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Divina Commedia

I

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
    A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
    Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
    Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
    Far off the noises of the world retreat;
    The loud vociferations of the street
    Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
    And leave my burden at this minster gate,
    Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
    To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
    While the eternal ages watch and wait.


II

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
    This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
    Birds build their nests; while ca...

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A Morn Of Guilt, An Hour Of Doom. (Hymn)

"There was darkness."

A Morn of guilt, an hour of doom -
    Shocks and tremblings dread;
All the city sunk in gloom -
    Thick darkness overhead.
An awful Sufferer straight and stark;
    Mocking voices fell;
Tremblings - tremblings in the dark,
    In heaven, and earth, and hell.

Groping, stumbling up the way,
    They pass, whom Christ forgave;
They know not what they do - they say,
    "Himself He cannot save.
On His head behold the crown
    That alien hands did weave;
Let Him come down, let Him come down,
    And we will believe!"

Fearsome dreams, a rending veil,
    Cloven rocks down hurl'd;
God's love itself doth seem to fail
    The Saviour of the world.
Dying thieves do curse and wail,
    Eithe...

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Restoration Of Malmesbury Abbey.[201]

Monastic and time-consecrated fane!
Thou hast put on thy shapely state again,
Almost august as in thy early day,
Ere ruthless Henry rent thy pomp away.
No more the mass on holidays is sung,
The Host high raised, or fuming censer swung;
No more, in amice white, the fathers, slow,
With lighted tapers, in long order go;
Yet the tall window lifts its arched height,
As to admit heaven's pale, but purer light;
Those massy clustered columns, whose long rows,
Even at noonday, in shadowy pomp repose,
Amid the silent sanctity of death,
Like giants seem to guard the dust beneath.
Those roofs re-echo (though no altars blaze)
The prayer of penitence, the hymn of praise;
Whilst meek Religion's self, as with a smile,
Reprints the tracery of the holy pile,
Worthy it...

William Lisle Bowles

Written After The Consecration Of The New Church At Kingswood.

When first the fane, that, white, on Kingswood-Pen,
Arrests, far off, the pausing stranger's ken,
Echoed the hymn of praise, and on that day,
Which seemed to shine with more auspicious ray,
When thousands listened to the prelate[214] there,
Who called on God, with consecrating prayer; -
I saw a village-maid, almost a child,        7
Even as a light-haired cherub, undefiled
From earth's rank fume, with innocent look, her eye
Meekly uplifted to the throne on high,
Join in the full choir's solemn harmony.
Oh, then, how many boding thoughts arose,
Lest, long ere varied life's uncertain close,
Those looks of modesty, that open truth
Lighting the forehead of ingenuous youth -
Lest these, as slowly steal maturing years,
Should fade, and grief succeed, and dimming tea...

William Lisle Bowles