Classic Poem

The Abbey broods beside the turbid Thames;
Her mother heart is filled with memories;
Her every niche is stored with storied names;
They move before me like a mist of seas.
I am confused, and made abash'd by these
Most kingly souls, grand, silent, and severe.
I am not equal, I should sore displease
The living...dead. I dare not enter; drear
And stain'd in storms of grander days all things appear.

I go! but shall I not return again
When art has taught me gentler, kindlier skill,
And time has given force and strength of strain?
I go! O ye that dignify and fill
The chronicles of earth! I would instil
Into my soul somehow the atmosphere
Of sanctity that here usurps the will;
But go; I seek the tomb of one — a peer
Of peers — whose dust a fool refused to cherish here.