If the abbey were a music, it would be a fugue.

The abbey's exterior is razor-sharp and needle-like, not unlike the Anglican pride it's supposed to represent. Take a few steps forward, and you find yourself under a ceiling of webbed stone. The entire space above is filled with concentric patterns of triangles, diamonds, circles, each repeating infinitely onto itself in a fractal-like ornament. I can only describe it as labyrinthine and hypnotising. The ceiling's arch makes the patterns bend downwards, giving the impression of stone dripping from the sky; a piece of gold extends from the centre of each circle. The left and right sides of the ceiling are flanked by stained glass, which flood the baroque space with blades of purple, yellow, green sunlight on a checkered marble floor. Another step forward, your gaze turns downwards, and you see V-shaped arches stretching into the great hall, each one slightly smaller than the next. Everything is pulled up, up, up, vertical and perpendicular, decorated with engravings of past victories or of prophecy: Dieu et Mon Droit. Despite the magnificent display, everything speaks with taciturn pride: yes, it is amazing, but we don't like to show off as much as the Italians or the French; the beauty here is aristocratically reserved. Members of the abbey pass by, some dressed in scarlet red, others dressed in solemn black; they look cheerful, and walk with their hands crossed behind their backs as they discuss scripture without as much of a nod. They walk with their heads down and eyes glued to the floor, occasionally glancing sideways to admire the falling light. It is beautiful, and like in any good cathedral, a single look at the ceiling makes the message very clear: you are in the house of God.

Westminster Abbey in Watercolor - American Watercolor

This particular house of God is also home to kings, queens, scientists and poets. As you walk further, you see marble knights on golden tombs, laid to rest in armour of stone. Some of them lie with their eyes closed and swords in their hands; others remain crowned, and so they shall be in the Kingdom of Heaven; others still are protected by figures of angels. They look very peaceful, and I believe they would be honored to have been buried so close to their regents. As the windows get longer the abbey itself seems to transform from a sculpture of physical matter into one made purely of light, and gold quietly grows everywhere around you. You begin very much to feel a dissolvement in this mosaic of ancients, princes, rulers, and silence. A glimpse into eternity.

I speak as to invite you, but, in truth, I was alone. I had come to see my masters.

I slowly walked through the empty quire stalls, usually home to the abbey's choir. Behind them rises a powerful organ, which plays the passions of John and Matthew today, and will continue to do so for millenia to come. Looking down, I stepped through the names of my earliest friends: Rudyard Kipling, who taught me how the tiger got his stripes; Lewis Carroll, whose life, perhaps, was all but a dream; Lord Byron, father of Childe Harold and Alexander Sergeevich. Next to them were T. S. Eliot, buried far from his Wasteland, and Auden, for the time being. I thanked them for their teaching and continued my pilgrimage.

I arrive at the Disciples. Dirac, Paul A. M., O.M., and under his name a strange equation of light and matter. Maxwell, James Clerk, who stands on the shoulders of Faraday. Hawking, Stephen, 1942-2018: a mind as sharp as it was brave. But I am here for another.

Before me was the Tomb. I looked at it with awe, and it replied to me with the same. The epitaph, engraved in onyx, Hic Depositum Est Quod Mortale Fuit: Here Lies What Was Mortal, if ever there was anything Mortal of his genius. I had studied the Master's works religiously since I was a boy, and finally had come before him. Indeed, this cathedral is divine.

He is dressed in flowing classical robe, and his right arm rests on a pile of books: Divinity, Chronology, Opticks, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. On the books rests my Universe. On the left are cherubs, holding up a scroll of arcane symbols. Most pilgrims to the cathedral are unaware of their meaning, and yet upon them is nothing other than magic of the purest kind, an infinity wrapped inside a point of space: convergent series. I am filled with a sense of religious fervor before Him, the one who bent Heaven and Earth to the will of his mind. Never again will our history be graced by the likes of such genius, for Newton was the Last Babylonian: the last of a kind which made no distinction between the magical and the scientific. Alexander Pope himself once proposed an epitaph:

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

Above him rises a globe. His mind is now immortalised in stone, and a small plaque reads below:

Here is buried Isaac Newton, Knight, who by a strength of mind almost divine, and mathematical principles peculiarly his own, explored the course and figures of the planets, the paths of comets, the tides of the sea, the dissimilarities in rays of light, and, what no other scholar has previously imagined, the properties of the colours thus produced. Diligent, sagacious and faithful, in his expositions of nature, antiquity and the holy Scriptures, he vindicated by his philosophy the majesty of God mighty and good, and expressed the simplicity of the Gospel in his manners. Mortals rejoice that there has existed such and so great an ornament of the human race! He was born on 25th December 1642, and died on 20th March 1726.

Rejoice we have and rejoice we will.

I cannot speak to my teacher, although he speaks to me. He is housed in an altar of green and red tapestry, which curls onto the statue of white marble, and I am struck with joy: but below the arches lie decaying bones, a mind of God now turned to ashes. If there was anything Mortal, perhaps it was the flesh of his body, the hands stained by ink, the eyesight strained from years under candlelight, the nervous disposition and fragile pride. And so it lies undisturbed. Even Newton must end, and some day I shall, too; the Heavens bend to reason, but fate does not. Sic transit gloria mundi, aeterna memoria sacrum.

I bow and thank my masters for their work, and return to the abbey's entrance. It has gotten dark, and the marble halls are now lit by crystal chandeliers. I linger in the temple of light.

Painting by Alexander Creswell: The Quire Looking West.