"For other tales they told, and one of these Not all the washing of the troublous seas, Nor all the changeful days whereof ye know, Have swept from out my memory: even so Small things far off will be remembered clear When matters both more mighty and more near, Are waxing dim to us. I, who have seen So many lands, and midst such marvels been, Clearer than these abodes of outland men, Can see above the green and unburnt fen The little houses of an English town, Cross-timbered, thatched with fen-reeds coarse and brown, And high o'er these, three gables, great and fair, That slender rods of columns do upbear Over the minster doors, and imagery Of kings, and flowers no summer field doth see, Wrought in these gables.--Yea I heard withal, In the fresh morning air, the trowels fall Upon the stone, a thin noise far away; For high up wrought the masons on that day, Since to the monks that house seemed scarcely well Till they had set a spire or pinnacle Each side the great porch. In that burgh I heard This tale, and late have set down every word That I remembered, when the thoughts would come Of what we did in our deserted home, And of the days, long past, when we were young, Nor knew the cloudy days that o'er us hung. And howsoever I am now grown old, Yet is it still the tale I then heard told Within the guest house of that Minster Close, Whose walls, like cliffs new made, before us rose."