The Building of the Temple
(An Anthem Heard In Canterbury Cathedral)
[The Organ]
O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
O Lord God of our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of Thy people, and prepare their heart unto Thee.
And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart to keep Thy commandments, and to build the palace for the which I have made provision.
[Boys’ voices.]
O come to the Palace of Life,
Let us build it again.
It was founded on terror and strife,
It was laid in the curse of the womb,
And pillared on toil and pain,
And hung with veils of doom,
And vaulted with the darkness of the tomb.
[Men’s voices.]
O Lord our God, we are sojourners here for a day,
Strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were:
Our years on the earth are a shadow that fadeth away;
Grant us light for our labour, and a time for prayer.
[Boys.]
But now with endless song,
And joy fulfilling the Law;
Of passion as pure as strong
And pleasure undimmed of awe;
With garners of wine and grain
Laid up for the ages long,
Let us build the Palace again
And enter with endless song,
Enter and dwell secure, forgetting the years of wrong.
[Men.]
O Lord our God, we are strangers and sojourners here,
Our beginning was night, and our end is hid in Thee:
Our labour on the earth is hope redeeming fear,
In sorrow we build for the days we shall not see.
[Boys.]
Great is the name
Of the strong and skilled,
Lasting the fame
Of them that build:
The tongues of many nations
Shall speak of our praise,
And far generations
Be glad for our days.
[Men.]
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
As all our children shall be, forgetting and forgot:
The fame of man is a murmur that passeth on the air,
We perish indeed if Thou remember not.
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
Strangers travelling down to the land of death:
There is neither work nor device nor knowledge there,
O grant us might for our labour, and to rest in faith.
[Boys.]
In joy, in the joy of the light to be,
[Men.]
O Father of Lights, unvarying and true,
[Boys.]
Let us build the Palace of Life anew.
[Men.]
Let us build for the years we shall not see.
[Boys.]
Lofty of line and glorious of hue,
With gold and pearl and with the cedar tree,
[Men.]
With silence due
And with service free,
[Boys.]
Let us build it for ever in splendour new.
[Men.]
Let us build in hope and in sorrow, and rest in Thee.
Notes
Drake’s Drum.
A state drum, painted with the arms of Sir Francis Drake, is preserved among other relics at Buckland Abbey, the seat of the Drake family in Devon.
The Fighting Téméraire.
The two last stanzas have been misunderstood. It seems, therefore, necessary to state that they are intended to refer to Turner’s picture in the National Gallery of “The Fighting Téméraire Tugged to her Last Berth.”
San Stefano.
Sir Peter Parker was the son of Admiral Christopher Parker, grandson of Admiral Sir Peter Parker (the life-long friend and chief mourner of Nelson), and great-grandson of Admiral Sir William Parker. On his mother’s side he was grandson of Admiral Byron, and first cousin of Lord Byron, the poet. He was killed in action near Baltimore in 1814, and buried in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, where may be seen the monument erected to his memory by the officers of the Menelaus.
The Quarter-Gunner’s Yarn.
This ballad is founded on fragmentary lines communicated to the author by Admiral Sir Windham Hornby, K.C.B., who served under Sir Thomas Hardy in 1827.
Væ Victis.
See Livy, XXX.,43, Diodorus Siculus, XIX., 106.
Seringapatam.
In 1780, while attempting to relieve Arcot, a British force of three thousand men was cut to pieces by Hyder Ali. Baird, then a young captain in the 73rd, was left for dead on the field. He was afterwards, with forty-nine other officers, kept in prison at Seringapatam, and treated with Oriental barbarity and treachery by Hyder Ali and his son Tippoo Sahib, Sultans of Mysore. Twenty-three of the prisoners died by poison, torture, and fever; the rest were surrendered in 1784. In 1799, at the siege of Seringapatam, Major-General Baird commanded the first European brigade, and volunteered to lead the storming column. Tippoo Sahib, with eight thousand of his men, fell in the assault, but the victor spared the lives of his sons and forbade a general sack of the city.
Clifton Chapel.
Clifton is one of the schools from which the largest number of boys pass direct into the R.M.A., Woolwich, and R.M.C., Sandhurst. Thirty-five Old Cliftonian officers served in the campaign of 1897 on the Indian Frontier, of whom twenty-two were mentioned in despatches and six recommended for the Distinguished Service Order. Of the three hundred Cliftonians who served in the war in South Africa, thirty were killed in action and fourteen died of wounds or fever.
Clifton, remember these thy sons who fell
Fighting far oversea;
For they in a dark hour remembered well
Their warfare learned of thee.
The Echo.
The ballad was “The Twa Sisters of Binnorie,” as set by
Arthur Somervell.
The End