On full-moon nights the Chapel glows
with Holy light. No tourists now,
with cameras or summer clothes
or catalogues to tell them how
the Chapel grew, how earth and shards
created, like a house of cards,
this tiny masterpiece that stands
here in a valley far from Town;
how loving, dextrous human hands
raised it, from soil to spire and crown,
through faith for spiritual reward,
so long ago, to praise the Lord.
Only the barn owl, hunting low
over the meadow, and the shrew
crouching immobile, eyes aglow,
in the accumulating dew
of the amazing full-moon night
bathe in its spreading, mystic light.
Richard Fleming
