Those grave old men—and women, too—
Who thronged St. Paul’s in your dear times,
I wonder what they thought of you
When they remembered your strange rhymes.
Did they forgive you for them then
(Because you preached so very well)
Putting them by and turn again
To hear your words of heaven and hell?
Or did they pause, seeing you there,
And say, “How can this man have grace?
Today, I worship otherwhere!”
And straightway seek some holier place?
(For so most men would do today
If from their pulpit you leaned down.
Yea, they would find the quickest way
To tell the scandal to the town.
How full it must have been of sin—
Your heart—had it but played with verse.
But you must tell your loves therein—
Alas! could anything be worse?)
And yet, among your ancient folk,
I think there must have been a few
Who learned at last to bear Love’s yoke
More patiently because of you.
I sit and see across the years
Some maiden kneeling in the aisle,
Contented now; all gone her tears
That you have changed into a smile:
Some lone poor man made rich again:
Some faded woman, with gray hair,
Forgetting most of her old pain:
Some grave-eyed poet, surer there.
O dim, hushed aisles of long ago,
Have ye no messages to tell?
We wonder, and are fain to know
The secret ye have kept so well.
And though we kneel with open eyes
Among your shadowy ghosts today,
Not one of us grows strong, or wise,
Nor find we comfort when we pray.
But they! how glad they seem who sit
And hear the voice we cannot hear.
Quietly they remember it—
The unknown thing we hold so dear.
Their faces fade with the low sun….
What wonder were they dreaming of?
Surely, it cannot be, John Donne,
They think that you were wise to love?
