The Bishop of Thule

The Lord Archbishop of Thule
(God grant him honor and ruth!)
Believed most truly and duly
In all that he held for truth.

As angels know in the skylands
High grace the bishop achieved;
He sailed to the Fairy Islands
And preached there what he believed.

He summoned the elfin legions
To leave their heathenish creed,
And told them of lofty regions
More lovely than fairy mead.

Far into the night he pleaded;
The moon went hearkening by,
And only the starlight beaded
The magical elfland sky.

"O brothers," he cried, "great wonders
The truth of my words shall prove;
Belief can loosen the thunders
And cause the hills to remove,

"But thunders would sorely frighten,
And never a hill is here;
I'll pray that the stars which brighten
This welkin may disappear."

His honest old hands he lifted,
And closed his honest old eyes,
And prayed till the daybeams drifted
In argosies through the skies.

Then yearning, hoping, confiding,
Upturning his grateful gaze,
He saw the galaxies hiding
Their glory in morning's haze.

Thereon the little brown people,
The trolls and fairies and elves,
Erected a chapel and steeple,
And prayed for wonders themselves.

And the bishop proclaimed in Thule,
"A miracle God hath wrought;"
And all that he said he truly
Believed in his inmost thought.