Church Going

    I step inside letting the door thud shut.

    Another church： matting seats and stone

    and little books； sprawlings of flowers cut

    For Sunday brownish now； some brass¹ and stuff

    Up at the holy end； the small neat organ；

    And a tense musty unignorable silence

    Brewed² God knows how long. Hatless I take off

    My cylce-clips in awkward revrence

    Move forward run my hand around the font.

    From where i stand the roof looks almost new——

    Cleaned or restored？ someone would know： I don't.

    Mounting the lectern I peruse³ a few

    hectoring large-scale verses and pronouce

    Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant

    The echoes snigger briefly⁴. Back at the door

    I sign the book donate an Irish sixpence

    Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

    Yet stop I did： in fact I often do

    And always end much at a loss like this

    Wondering what to look for； wondering too

    When churches fall completely out of use

    What we shall turn them into if we shall keep

    A few cathedrals chronically⁵ on show

    Their parchment plate and pyx in locked cases

    And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.

    Shall we avoid them as unlucky places？

    Or after dark will dubious⁶ women come

    To make their children touvh a particular stone；

    Pick simples for a cancer； or on some

    Advised night see walking a dead one？

    Power of some sort or other will go on

    In games in riddles⁷ seemingly at random⁸；

    But superstition⁹ like belief must die

    And what remains¹⁰ when disbelief has gone？

    Grass weedy pavement brambles butress sky.

    A shape less recognisable each week

    A purpose more obscure. I wonder who

    Will be the last the very last to seek

    This place for whta it was； one of the crew

    That tap and jot¹¹ and know what rood-lofts were？

    Some ruin-bibber randy for antique

    Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff

    Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh？

    Or will he be my representative

    Bored uninformed knowing the ghostly silt¹²

    Dispersed¹³ yet tending to this cross of ground

    Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt

    So long and equably what since is found

    Only in separation——marriage and birth

    And death and thoughts of these——for which was built

    This special shell？ For though I've no idea

    What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth

    It pleases me to stand in silence here；

    A serious house on serious earth it is

    In whose blent air all our compulsions meet

    Are recognisd and robed as destinies.

    And that much never can be obsolete¹⁴

    Since someone will forever be surprising

    A hunger in himself to be more serious

    And gravitating with it to this ground

    Which he once heard was proper to grow wise in

    If only that so many dead lie round.