Page:Poet Lore, At the Chasm, volume 24, 1913.pdf/35

Rh From the organ peal sonorous Heavenly harmonies; the crowd kneels; Pass the bishops, pass the abbots; From the belfry still the bell sounds, Jubilant and never-tiring: Restless ghosts, ye souls in trouble, Come, the mass will soon be over!

Then the cock crew! Clear the dawn broke, And the rain of orange blossoms Disappeared amid the brightness Of inviolate blue heavens. And the breeze arrived, the herald, He that wakes the birds from slumber, He that scatters on the herbage Handfuls bright of glittering diamonds. All the visionary marvel —Graceful work of gold and silver— At one blow, sinks, falls, is broken, Is effaced, is fled, is vanished, Blotted out and brought to nothing. On the broken rows of columns, On the bent and twisted pillars, On the shattered spires and needles, In the aisles and their recesses, Flashed and shone—made up of atoms Restless, bright and scintillating— Thin and subtle golden gauzes, Like light, filmy shawls in tatters.

When the sun in heaven was tracing His triumphal arches vivid Back behind the darksome mountains And the vapors of the landscape, From the ruined church returning, Came the sad, mysterious pilgrim. In his hand the dry and knotty Staff he took to aid his journey, And amid the mists departed, And was lost among the tree-trunks.