In the dean's porch a nest of clay
With five small tenants may be seen,
Five solemn faces, each as wise
As though its owner were a dean;
Five downy fledglings in a row,
Packed close as in an antique pew
The schoolgirls are whose foreheads clear
At the Venite shine on you.
Day after day the swallows sit
With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound,
But dreaming and digesting much,
They grow thus wise and soft and round.
They watch the canons come to dine,
And hear the mullion-bars across,
Over the fragrant fruit and wine,
Deep talk about the reredos.
Her hands with field-flowers drench'd, a child
Leaps past in wind-blown dress and hair,
The swallows turn their heads askew, —
Five judges deem that she is fair.
Prelusive touches sound within,
Straightway they recognize the sign,
And, blandly nodding, they approve
The minuet of Rubenstein,
They mark the cousins' schoolboy talk,
(Male birds flown wide from minster bell),
And blink at each broad term of art,
Binomial or bicycle.
Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm,
Doth such a stillness mask from sight
Such swiftness? can such peace conceal
Passion and ecstasy of flight?
Yet somewhere 'mid your Eastern suns,
Under a white Greek architrave
At morn, or when the shaft of fire
Lies large upon the India wave,
A sense of something dear gone by
Will stir, strange longings thrill the heart
For a small world embowered and close,
Of which ye some time were a part.
