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Through the Woods.
65
THROUGH THE WOODS.
Esther.—I am going to church through the woods. It is Catherine’s Eve.
Eliot.—I will walk with you there, and will wait till your service is done.
I am a doubter, you know. ’Tis the mould of the age.
I fear we are children of Thomas the doubter, to-day.
Esther.—Yet Thomas was still an Apostle, and one of the saints,
And blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.
Eliot.— Alas! we are all tao unworthy! but yet, in our hearts
Something cleaves, were it only the hymns and the prayers of the past. . . .
As you see in this oak-tree, fast-locked in the thick folded wood,
The nail that a child’s hand has driven in when it was green.
But speak of your childhood to me. Was your home always here?
Esther.—When I was a child I remember we lived on a hill
In the far-off Australian landscape, not here in the green.
Eliot.—I will walk with you there, and will wait till your service is done.
I am a doubter, you know. ’Tis the mould of the age.
I fear we are children of Thomas the doubter, to-day.
Esther.—Yet Thomas was still an Apostle, and one of the saints,
And blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.
Eliot.— Alas! we are all tao unworthy! but yet, in our hearts
Something cleaves, were it only the hymns and the prayers of the past. . . .
As you see in this oak-tree, fast-locked in the thick folded wood,
The nail that a child’s hand has driven in when it was green.
But speak of your childhood to me. Was your home always here?
Esther.—When I was a child I remember we lived on a hill
In the far-off Australian landscape, not here in the green.