Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that comes and goes Field and street that her waves keep sweet, when past the bounds of their old repose, Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foam-flecked estuary ebbs and flows. Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of the wildwood tree, Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by marsh and meadow, by lawn and lea, Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, and revels the surging sea. Strong as time, and as faith sublime,--clothed round with shadows of hopes and fears, Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of prayers and tears,-- Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years. Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows, Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows, Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows. Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared, Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of craftsmen we know not reared, Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and change passed by them as one that feared. Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed, Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed, Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed. Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed: These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of them quick or dead: Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head. Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied hands Sees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands, Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud as a virgin stands. Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her sacred state, Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters and age makes great: Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate. Fate, more high than the star-shown sky, more deep than waters unsounded, shines Keen and far as the final star on souls that seek not for charms or signs; Yet more bright is the love-shown light of men's hands lighted in songs or shrines.