A CENTURY since the Mersey flowed | |
| Unburdened to the sea; | |
| In the blue air no smoky cloud | |
| Hung over wood and lea, | |
| Where the old church with the fretted tower | 5 |
| Had a hamlet round its knee. | |
| |
| And all along the eastern way | |
| The sheep fed on the track; | |
| The grass grew quietly all the day,— | |
| Only the rooks were black; | 10 |
| And the pedler frightened the lambs at play | |
| With his knapsack on his back. | |
| |
| Where blended Irk and Irwell streamed | |
| While Britons pitched the tent, | |
| Where legionary helmets gleamed, | 15 |
| And Norman bows were bent, | |
| An ancient shrine was once esteemed | |
| Where pilgrims daily went. | |
| |
| A century since the pedler still | |
| Somewhat of this might know,— | 20 |
| Might see the weekly markets fill | |
| And the people ebb and flow | |
| Beneath St. Mary’s on the hill | |
| A hundred years ago. | |
| |
| Since then a vast and filmy veil | 25 |
| Is o’er the landscape drawn, | |
| Through which the sunset hues look pale, | |
| And gray the roseate dawn; | |
| And the fair face of hill and dale | |
| Is apt to seem forlorn. | 30 |
| |
| Smoke, rising from a thousand fires, | |
| Hides all that passed from view; | |
| Vainly the prophet’s heart aspires,— | |
| It hides the future too; | |
| And the England of our slow-paced sires | 35 |
| Is thought upon by few. | |
| |
| Yet man lives not by bread alone,— | |
| How shall he live by gold? | |
| The answer comes in a sudden moan | |
| Of sickness, hunger, and cold; | 40 |
| And, lo! the seed of a new life sown | |
| In the ruins of the old! | |
| |
| The human heart, which seemed so dead, | |
| Wakes with a sudden start; | |
| To right and left we hear it said, | 45 |
| “Nay; ’t is a noble heart,” | |
| And the angels whisper overhead, | |
| “There ’s a new shrine in the mart!” | |
| |
| And though it be long since daisies grew | |
| Where Irk and Irwell flow, | 50 |
| If human love springs up anew, | |
| And angels come and go, | |
| What matters it that the skies were blue | |
| A hundred years ago? | |
| |
