What saw he there? He saw a three-years child, That lay a-dying on a wisp of straw Swept up into a corner. O'er its brow The damps of death were gathering: all alone, Uncared for, save that by its side was set A cup, it waited. And the eyes had ceased To look on things at hand. He thought they gazed In wistful wonder, or some faint surmise Of coming change,--as though they saw the gate Of that fair land that seems to most of us Very far off. When he beheld the look, He said, "I knew, I knew how this would be! Another! Ay, and but for drunken blows And dull forgetfulness of infant need, This little one had lived." And thereupon The misery of it wrought upon him so, That, unaware, he wept. Oh! then it was That, in the bending of his manly head, It came between the child and that whereon He gazed, and, when the curate glanced again, Those dying eyes, drawn back to earth once more, Looked up into his own, and smiled. He drew More near, and kneeled beside the small frail thing, Because the lips were moving; and it raised Its baby hand, and stroked away his tears, And whispered, "Master! master!" and so died. Now, in that town there was an ancient church, A minster of old days which these had turned To parish uses: there the curate served. It stood within a quiet swarded Close, Sunny and still, and, though it was not far From those dark courts where poor humanity Struggled and swarmed, it seemed to wear its own Still atmosphere about it, and to hold That old-world calm within its precincts pure And that grave rest which modern life foregoes. When the sad curate, rising from his knees, Looked from the dead to heaven,--as, unaware, Men do when they would track departed life,--He heard the deep tone of the minster-bell Sounding for service, and he turned away So heavy at heart, that, when he left behind That dismal habitation, and came out In the clear sunshine of the minster-yard, He never marked it. Up the aisle he moved, With his own gloom about him; then came forth, And read before the folk grand words and calm,--Words full of hope; but into his dull heart Hope came not. As one talketh in a dream, And doth not mark the sense of his own words, He read; and, as one walketh in a dream, He after walked toward the vestment-room, And never marked the way he went by,--no, Nor the gray verger that before him stood, The great church-keys depending from his hand, Ready to follow him out and lock the door.