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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  At the Church Gate

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

At the Church Gate

By William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)

ALTHOUGH I enter not,

Yet round about the spot

Ofttimes I hover:

And near the sacred gate

With longing eyes I wait,

Expectant of her.

The minster bell tolls out

Above the city’s rout,

And noise and humming:

They’ve hushed the minster bell;

The organ ’gins to swell:

She’s coming, she’s coming!

My lady comes at last,

Timid, and stepping fast,

And hastening hither,

With modest eyes downcast;

She comes—she’s here—she’s past—

May heaven go with her!

Kneel undisturbed, fair saint!

Pour out your praise or plaint

Meekly and duly:

I will not enter there,

To sully your pure prayer

With thoughts unruly.

But suffer me to pace

Round the forbidden place,

Lingering a minute,

Like outcast spirits who wait

And see through heaven’s gate

Angels within it.