Page:Main Street and other poems, Kilmer, 1917.djvu/75

MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS

THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS (continued) Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train,

Whose mighty hand Saint Remy's hand did keep

And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep

An echo of the voice of Charlemagne.

For God thou has known fear, when from His side

Men wandered, seeking alien shrines and new,

But still the sky was bountiful and blue

And thou wast crowned with France's love and pride.

Sacred thou art, from pinnacle to base;

And in thy panes of gold and scarlet glass

The setting sun sees thousandfold his face;

Sorrow and joy, in stately silence pass

Across thy walls, the shadow and the light;

Around thy lofty pillars, tapers white

Illuminate, with delicate sharp flames,

The brows of saints with venerable names,

And in the night erect a fiery wall.

A great but silent fervour burns in all

Those simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb,

And know that down below, beside the Rhine— [ 69 ]