4<3 THE CHURCH OF ST. HELEN S, DARLEY DALE. 



Ah then, what sounds unwonted, — sudden vow, 



Mad laughter, blasphemous despairing cry, 

 Vague prayer from lips that never prayed till now, — 



Went up discordant through the lurid sky ! 

 Full oft white-glistening choir and vestured priest, 



With cross uplifted and low-chanted psalm 

 Wending their Churchward way in fast or feast, 



Felt the dumb influence of thy changeless calm. 

 Nor less, when beauty was divorced from awe, 



And factious zeal had humbled Church and Throne, 

 In thy stern aspect the grim Roundhead saw 



The black and joyless image of his own. 

 That sullen frenzy passed : — both Church and state 



Emerged triumphant from the civil strife ; 

 And loyal minds once more could contemplate 



In thee our monarchy's perennial life : 

 And anglers loitering late by Derwent's side 



Heard Darley bells ring in the happier times ; 

 And up from Matlock, as the cadence died, 



And down from Winster came responsive chimes : 

 Right gladly rang they ; for that day unmatched 



Restored our king, and healed our nation's sores : 

 And dim with joy was many an eye that watched 



Its last light die behind the Stanton moors. 

 And change on change has followed ; age on age, 



Each filled with circumstance, rolls slowly by : 

 And ending here their shortlived pilgrimage 



The dalesfolk in their nameless myriads lie. 

 Weak minds there are whose superstitious fear 



Peoples thy gloom with ghostly shapes of dread, 

 Weird visitants from some malignant sphere, 



Or restless spirits of the untimely dead : 

 Or morbid fancy sees at peep of morn 



Round thy huge trunk the fairies break their dance : — 

 Moie solid truth be mine ! Thou hast outworn 



A hundred decades of the world's advance : 

 To me thy patriarchal form brings thought 



Of ages linked in one historic bond ; 

 Of men who lived and sorrowed, joyed and wrought, 



And still are living in some life beyond. 

 How fit thy place hard by this ancient pile 



Where the one Faith through every chance and change 

 Has held her lamp unquenched, though dimmed awhile, 



Far as the Christian thought can backward range ; — 

 Has held, and shall hold ; for what powers of ill 



Can thwart the eternal ? Whatsoe'er betide, 

 God's holy Ark, bearing her Pilot still, 



Shall the fell fury of all storms outride. 

 Even so, old tree, thou standest sound and firm, 



Clothed in new green with each returning Spring ; 

 Nor dare imagination fix the term 



When British yews shall own another king : 

 Nay rather in her dreams she sees thee last 



A life unquenched, defiant of decay, 

 Till o'er thy head rings out the final blast 



And every shattered grave gives up its prey. 



F. Atkinson. 



