Poems by Lionel Johnson

To the fairest!

                      Then to thee

Consecrate and bounden be,

Winchester! this verse of mine.

Ah, that loveliness of thine!

To have lived enchaunted years

Free from sorrows, free from fears,

Where thy Tower's great shadow falls

Over those proud buttressed walls;

Whence a purpling glory pours

From high heaven's inheritors,

Throned within the arching stone!

To have wandered, hushed, alone,

Gently round thy fair, fern-grown

Chauntry of the Lilies, lying

Where the soft night winds go sighing

Round thy Cloisters, in moonlight

Branching dark, or touched with white:

Round old, chill aisles, where moon-smitten

Blanches the Orate, written

Under each worn, old-world face

Graven on Death's holy place!