Verses turned in aid of A Public Subscription (1952) towards the restoration of the Church of St. Katherine Chiselhampton, Oxon

Across the wet November night

The church is bright with candlelight

    And waiting Evensong.

A single bell with plaintive strokes

Pleads louder than the stirring oaks

    The leafless lanes along.

It calls the choirboys from their tea

And villagers, the two or three,

    Damp down the kitchen fire,

Let out the cat, and up the lane

Go paddling through the gentle rain

    Of misty Oxfordshire.

How warm the many candles shine

On SAMUEL DOWBIGGIN’S design

    For this interior neat,

These high box pews of Georgian days

Which screen us from the public gaze

    When we make answer meet;

How gracefully their shadow falls

On bold pilasters down the walls

    And on the pulpit high.

The chandeliers would twinkle gold

As pre-Tractarian sermons roll’d

    Doctrinal, sound and dry.

From that west gallery no doubt

The viol and serpent tooted out

    The Tallis tune to Ken,

And firmly at the end of prayers

The clerk below the pulpit stairs

    Would thunder out “Amen.”

But every wand’ring thought will cease

Before the noble altarpiece

    With carven swags array’d,

For there in letters all may read

The Lord’s Commandments, Prayer and Creed,

    And decently display’d.

On country mornings sharp and clear

The penitent in faith draw near

    And kneeling here below

Partake the Heavenly Banquet spread

Of Sacramental Wine and Bread

    And JESUS’ presence know.

And must that plaintive bell in vain

Plead loud along the dripping lane?

    And must the building fall?

Not while we love the Church and live

And of our charity will give

    Our much, our more, our all.