THE SERMON OF A STATUE.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 182, 11 December 1886, Page 1

THE SERMON OF A STATUE.

(IN WESTMINSTER AIIBEY.) Suddenly, in thn melancholy place With sea p 111 on king and priest and knight as89 nbled, The iiiii-io <ml d ii?. Then, with kindly grace, On a pold hi-ad \va- laid a hand th.it trembled: "Yea litt c btraiioer come." the verger cried. "And h< nr the sermon." "No." the child repled. A moment B+audi- q on his new-world will. There in ihe Ccr >< r of the Pacts, holding His cap with pirtt} reverence, an still Am any of that company, he Baid, folding Bis arras : "'But set thax cannon wait." And then: "I want 10 stay here with these marble men. ".If they could Jpreich, I'd listen !" All, they can. Another thought. Tt ple4sei the boy to linger In the pale yres n nc u of th»» pt* orleps man Who poi't-dto his text w ith moveless finger. liangum? with the bluo eyed wonder, he suid : "Look, This one (bur do yon know him ?) has a book !" * • * I know him. Ay, and all the world knows him,— Among th • many poets the only one ! On that hitih head the stained gloom was dim ; la those fixed eyes the look of gods was lonely. Kings at his feet, to whom his hand gave fame, .Lay, dust and a3bes. shining through his name I heard him. With the etlll voice of the dead JTrom that atono page, right careless of derieion. Sad jesters of a faithless ajre ! he read How the great glob.- would vauish like a Tiai'in. With all its inhabit- . . . And hath he Then writ out one word, and that— Vanity ? — S. M. B. Piatt. in the "Century."