Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/41

 At length I heard a murmur as of lips, And reached an open oratory hung With heaviest blackness of the whole eclipse; Beneath the dome a fuming censer swung; And one lay there upon a low white bed, With tapers burning at the foot and head:

The Lady of the images, supine, Deathstill, lifesweet, with folded palms she lay: And kneeling there as at a sacred shrine A young man wan and worn who seemed to pray: A crucifix of dim and ghostly white Surmounted the large altar left in night:—

The chambers of the mansion of my heart, In every one whereof thine image dwells, Are black with grief eternal for thy sake.

The inmost oratory of my soul, Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead, Is black with grief eternal for thy sake.

I kneel beside thee and I clasp the cross, With eyes forever fixed upon that face, So beautiful and dreadful in its calm.