... from James Joyce's Pomes Penyeach ...

NIGHTPIECE

 Gaunt in gloom,
 The pale stars their torches,
 Enshrouded, wave.
 Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume,
 Arches on soaring arches,
 Night's sindark nave.

 Seraphim,
 The lost hosts awaken
 To service till
 In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
 Raised when she has and shaken
 Her thurible.

 And long and loud,
 To night's nave upsoaring,
 A starknell tolls
 As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
 Voidward from the adoring
 Waste of souls.

... ah what a spacious soundiferous thing it is. - tom

TopicPoetry - 2001-08-22

(correlates: OnSilence, HappyBirthday, LuckyMe, ...)