FAIR are the finer creature-sounds; of these
Is Magdalen full: her bees, the while they drop
Susurrant to the garth from weeds atop;
And round the priestless Pulpit, auguries
Of wrens in council from an hundred leas;
And merry fish of Cherwell, fain to stop
The water-plantain's way; and deer that crop
Delicious herbage under choral trees.
The cry for silver and gold in Christendom
Without, threads not her silence and her dark.
Only against the isolate Tower there break
Low rhythmic murmurs of good men to come:
Invasive seas of hushed approach that make
Memorial music, would the ear but hark.