A Lincolnshire Church

Greyly tremendous the thunder

Hung over the width of the wold

But here the green marsh was alight

In a huge cloud cavern of gold,

And there, on a gentle eminence,

Topping some ash trees, a tower

Silver and brown in the sunlight,

Worn by sea-wind and shower,

Lincolnshire Middle Pointed.

And around it, turning their backs,

The usual sprinkle of villas;

The usual woman in slacks,

Cigarette in her mouth,

Regretting Americans, stands

As a wireless croons in the kitchen

Manicuring her hands.

Dear old, bloody old England

Of telegraph poles and tin,

Seemingly so indifferent

And with so little soul to win.

What sort of church, I wonder?

The path is a grassy mat,

And grass is drowning the headstones

Sloping this way and that.

“Cathedral Glass” in the windows,

A roof of unsuitable slate—

Restored with a vengeance, for certain,

About eighteen-eighty-eight.

The door swung easily open

(Unlocked, for these parts, is odd)

And there on the South aisle altar

Is the tabernacle of God.

There where the white light flickers

By the white and silver veil,

A wafer dipped in a wine-drop

Is the Presence the angels hail,

Is God who created the Heavens

And the wide green marsh as well

Who sings in the sky with the skylark

Who calls in the evening bell,

Is God who prepared His coming

With fruit of the earth for his food

With stone for building His churches

And trees for making His rood.

There where the white light flickers,

Our Creator is with us yet,

To be worshipped by you and the woman

Of the slacks and the cigarette.

*   *   *   *   *

The great door shuts, and lessens

That roar of churchyard trees

And the Presence of God Incarnate

Has brought me to my knees.

“I acknowledge my transgressions”

The well-known phrases rolled

With thunder sailing over

From the heavily clouded wold.

“And my sin is ever before me.”

There in the lighted East

He stood in that lowering sunlight,

An Indian Christian priest.

And why he was here in Lincolnshire

I neither asked nor knew,

Nor whether his flock was many

Nor whether his flock was few

I thought of the heaving waters

That bore him from sun glare harsh

Of some Indian Anglican Mission

To this green enormous marsh.

There where the white light flickers,

Here, as the rains descend,

The same mysterious Godhead

Is welcoming His friend.