| |
| ADRIFT in the sunlight the autumn wind mourns | |
| Through the ripe orchards’ rosy, luxuriant bending; | |
| Let us go past the hedges of blackberry-thorns | |
| With wild roses blending,— | |
| |
| Across the arched bridges where softly below | 5 |
| The pale river moves with a murmurous flowing | |
| ’Twixt shadowy banks where the long rushes grow | |
| And sweet winds are blowing; | |
| |
| Along the close streets of the city so quaint, | |
| So divinely o’erbrimmed with the sound of the swinging | 10 |
| Of bells in brown towers, whose musical plaint | |
| Around us is ringing. * * * * * | |
| Then on to the square,—here erect in the shade | |
| The solemn cathedral stands up like a warning, | |
| And calls with its wonderful voice from the dead | 15 |
| At evening and morning. | |
| |
| The broad, vaulted aisles are so still we can hear | |
| The silences bend through the loneliness listening | |
| To the eloquent brasses that burn at our feet | |
| With holy signs glistening. | 20 |
| |
| The church is so dark that the sun looking in | |
| Among the stained windows to list to the praying, | |
| Seeing only the motionless worshippers lean | |
| To inaudible saying, | |
| |
| Falls tremblingly over each monument stone, | 25 |
| And moves like a dream o’er the meek, saintly faces, | |
| With halos above them that softly look down | |
| From their sanctified places. | |
| |
| Here ranged side by side, disdaining the tomb, | |
| Buckled spurs and girt armor so stern and so steady | 30 |
| Lies many a knight in the darkness and gloom, | |
| And many a lady. | |
| |
| O treacherous eyes, through their stony lids pressed | |
| Perchance they can see where mutely we ’re wandering; | |
| It may be they ’re weary of stillness and rest, | 35 |
| Of their ages of pondering! | |
| |
| So close to each other, so white and so grand, | |
| Who knows how they ’re musing, these grave, quiet lovers, | |
| When the old city sleeps and they lie hand in hand | |
| And the night darkness covers! | 40 |
| |
| I dream of their loves and their lives as I kneel | |
| Alone on the steps leading up to the choir,— | |
| Of their lives of sweet patience and turbulent zeal, | |
| Of their loves mounted higher. | |
| |
| I kneel with my face ’gainst the huge grated door | 45 |
| Behind which the pulpit leans carved with devices | |
| Of devils that tempt, of saints that implore | |
| From the sin that entices. | |
| |
| I kneel with a prayer on my lips for the dead | |
| Whose hands stretching upward are folded for praying,— | 50 |
| For the dead whose cold limbs are so heavily clad | |
| In colder arraying,— | |
| |
| For the dead who still cling to the beads and the Book, | |
| To the crucifix pale, blessed sign of salvation! | |
| For the dead who look into my heart, till the look | 55 |
| Burns with life’s inspiration. | |
| |
| But hark, how the silence is drifting away! | |
| And curious people impatient are coming | |
| All alive from the sparkle and sunlight of day | |
| To death’s mystical gloaming. | 60 |
| |
| O’er the exquisite voices of dreams each by each | |
| They move through the church with a noisy delaying. | |
| Let us go, nor disturb with vain, mortal speech | |
| What the dead have been saying. | |
| |
