Signing the benediction of his Lord. The altar steps he mounted. Turning then Westward his face to that innumerous host, Thus spake he unastonished: 'Sirs, ere now This church's Consecration rite was sung:-- Be ours to sing thanksgiving to our God, "Ter-Sanctus," and "Te Deum."' _THE PENANCE OF SAINT LAURENCE._ Eadbald, King of Kent, persecuting the Church, Laurence the Bishop deems himself the chief of sinners because he has consented, like the neighbouring bishops, to depart; but, being consoled by a wonderful reprimand, faces the King, and offers himself up to death. The King reproves them that gave him evil counsel. The day was dying on the Kentish downs And in the oakwoods by the Stour was dead, While sadly shone o'er snowy plains of March Her comfortless, cold star. The daffodil That year was past its time. The leaden stream Had waited long that lamp of river-beds Which, when the lights of Candlemas are quenched, Looks forth through February mists. A film Of ice lay brittle on the shallows: dark And swift the central current rushed: the wind Sighed through the tawny sedge. 'So fleets our life-- Like yonder gloomy stream; so sighs our age-- Like yonder sapless sedge!' Thus Laurence mused Standing on that sad margin all alone, His twenty years of gladsome English toil Ending at last abortive. 'Stream well-loved, Here on thy margin standing saw I first, My head by chance uplifting from my book, King Ethelbert's strong countenance; he is dead; And, next him, riding through the April gleams, Bertha, his Queen, with face so lit by love Its lustre smote the beggar as she passed And changed his sigh to song. She too is dead; And half their thanes that chased the stag that day, Like echoes of their own glad bugle-horn, Have passed and are not. Why must I abide? And why must age, querulous and coward both, Past days lamenting, fear not less that stroke Which makes an end of grief? Base life of man! How sinks thy slow infection through our bones; Then when you fawned upon us, high-souled youth Heroic in its gladness, spurned your gifts, Yearning for noble death. In age, in age We kiss the hand that nothing holds but dust, Murmuring, "Not yet!"' A tear, ere long ice-glazed, Hung on the old man's cheek. 'What now remains?' Some minutes passed; then, lifting high his head, He answered, 'God remains.' His faith, his heart, Were unsubverted. 'Twas the weight of grief, The exhausted nerve, the warmthless blood of age, That pressed him down like sin, where sin was none-- Not sin, but weakness only. Long he mused, Then slowly walked, and feebly, through the woods Towards his house monastic. Vast it loomed Through ground-fog seen; and vaster, close beside,