How smartly the quarters of the hour march by

      That the jack-o’-clock never forgets;

   Ding-dong; and before I have traced a cusp’s eye,

Or got the true twist of the ogee over,

         A double ding-dong ricochetts.

   Just so did he clang here before I came,

      And so will he clang when I’m gone

   Through the Minster’s cavernous hollows—the same

Tale of hours never more to be will he deliver

      To the speechless midnight and dawn!

   I grow to conceive it a call to ghosts,

      Whose mould lies below and around.

   Yes; the next “Come, come,” draws them out from their posts,

And they gather, and one shade appears, and another,

      As the eve-damps creep from the ground.

   See—a Courtenay stands by his quatre-foiled tomb,

      And a Duke and his Duchess near;

   And one Sir Edmund in columned gloom,

And a Saxon king by the presbytery chamber;

      And shapes unknown in the rear.

   Maybe they have met for a parle on some plan

      To better ail-stricken mankind;

   I catch their cheepings, though thinner than

The overhead creak of a passager’s pinion

      When leaving land behind.

   Or perhaps they speak to the yet unborn,

      And caution them not to come

   To a world so ancient and trouble-torn,

Of foiled intents, vain lovingkindness,

      And ardours chilled and numb.

   They waste to fog as I stir and stand,

      And move from the arched recess,

   And pick up the drawing that slipped from my hand,

And feel for the pencil I dropped in the cranny

      In a moment’s forgetfulness.