and behold that Face
Which to its likeness hourly more compels
Those faces t'ward It turned. That function o'er,
Thus spake the Bishop: 'Brethren, sing "Te Deum;"'
They sang it; while within him he replied,
'Lord, let Thy servant now depart in peace.'

A week went by with gladness winged and prayer.
In wonder Cedd beheld those structures new
From small beginnings reared, though many a gift,
Sent for that work's behoof, had fed the poor
In famine time laid low. Moorlands he saw
By cornfields vanquished; marked the all-beauteous siege
Of pasture yearly threatening loftier crags
Loud with the bleat of lambs. Their shepherd once
Had roved a bandit; next had toiled a slave;
Now with both hands he poured his weekly wage
Down on his young wife's lap, his pretty babes
Gambolling around for joy. A hospital
Stood by the convent's gate. With moistened eye,
Musing on Him Who suffers in His sick,
The Bishop paced it. There he found his death:
That year a plague had wasted all the land:
It reached him. Late that night he said, ''Tis well!'
In three days more he lay with hands death cold
Crossed on a peaceful breast.
Like winter cloud
Borne through dark air, that portent feared of man,
Ill tidings, making way with mystic speed,
Shadowed ere long the troubled bank of Thames,
And spread a wailing round its Minsters twain,
Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's. Saint Alban's caught
That cry, and northward echoed. Southward soon
Forlorn it rang 'mid towers of Rochester;
Then seaward died. But in that convent pile,
Wherein so long the Saint had made abode,
A different grief there lived, a deeper grief,
That grief which part hath none in sobs or tears--
Which needs must act. There thirty monks arose,
And, taking each his staff, made vow thenceforth
To serve God's altar where their father died,
Or share his grave. Through Ithancestor's gate
As forth they paced between two kneeling crowds,
A little homeless boy, who heard their dirge
(Late orphaned, at its grief he marvelled not),
So loved them that he followed, shorter steps
Doubling 'gainst theirs. At first the orphan went
That mood relaxed: before them now he ran
To pluck a flower; as oft he lagged behind,
The wild bird's song so aptly imitating
That, by his