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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Sonnet Composed During a Storm

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.

Roslin

Sonnet Composed During a Storm

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

THE WIND is now thy organist; a clank

(We know not whence) ministers for a bell

To mark some change of service. As the swell

Of music reached its height, and even when sank

The notes, in prelude, Roslin! to a blank

Of silence, how it thrilled thy sumptuous roof,

Pillars, and arches,—not in vain time-proof,

Though Christian rites be wanting! From what bank

Came those live herbs? by what hand were they sown,

Where dew falls not, where rain-drops seem unknown?

Yet in the Temple they a friendly niche

Share with their sculptured fellows, that, green-grown

Copy their beauty more and more, and preach,

Though mute, of all things blending into one.