Читать книгу The Lazy Minstrel - Ashby-Sterry Joseph - Страница 10

SAINT ALOYS the Great is both mouldy and grim,

The Decalogue's dusty, the windows are dim;

If I'm not mistaken, you'll long have to search

Before you discover this old City church:

But it's whereabouts I don't intend to betray,

Though a pilgrim each week to the shrine of Saint May!

The one bell is cracked in its crazy old tower,

The sermon oft lasts rather more than an hour;

The parson is prosy, the clerk eighty-three,

The organ drones out in a sad minor key:

Yet how quickly the moments, I find, fly away,

I pass every week 'neath the spell of Saint May.

She sits in a high, ancient black oaken pew,

Which almost conceals her fair face from my view;

The sweetest of pictures, it can't be denied,

With two tiny sisters who sit by her side:

And they lisp the responses and kneel down to pray,

With their little hands locked in the palm of Saint May.

Of saints I've seen many in churches before —

In Florence or Venice, they're there by the score;

Agnese, Maria – the rest I forget —

By Titian, Bassano, and brave Tintoret —

Though as pictures delightful, I fancy that they,

E'en as pictures, can't rival my gentle Saint May.

She's almost too young and too plump for a saint,

With sweet little dimples that Millais might paint;

She wears no ascetic or mortified mien,

No wimple of yellow or vestment of green —

But her soft golden hair throws a sunshiny ray,

Like a nimbus, around the fair face of Saint May!

What surquayne or partlet could look better than

My saint's curly jacket of black Astracan?

What coif than her bonnet – a triumph of skill —

Or alb than her petticoat, edged with a frill.

Would she love, would she honour, and would she obey?

I wonder while gazing across at Saint May!

The sermon is finished, the blessing is o'er,

The sparse congregation drift out at the door;

I pause as I pass down the gloomy old aisle,

To see my saint pass and perchance get a smile:

I would daily change faith like the Vicar of Bray,

Could I pass all my life in adoring Saint May!

Through the weary dull week, as it rolls on apace,

I'm haunted by thoughts of that tender young face;

And oft, O how oft, does the vision arise —

The pureness and truth of those eloquent eyes!

And I long for the hour, and I count on the day,

When I sit at a distance and worship Saint May!

No doubt you'll be vastly surprised when you're told

Her name, in the Calendar, ne'er was enrolled —

They prattled of "May," the sweet sisterly pair,

I added the "Saint," – she was canonized there!

Ah! if saints might wed sinners, I'd yield to her sway,

And I straightway would fall on my knees to Saint May!