Chartres

by Edith Wharton

　　Immense, august, like some Titanic bloom,

　　  The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core,

　　Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or,

　　  Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom,

　　And stamened with keen flamelets that illume

　　  The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor,

　　By surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore,

　　  A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb,

　　The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea--

　　  For these alone the finials fret the skies,

　　The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free,

　　  While from the triple portals, with grave eyes,

　　Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity,

　　  The cloud of witnesses still testifies.

　　     II

　　The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize

　　  The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold.

　　A rigid fetich in her robe of gold

　　  The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes,

　　Enthroned beneath her votive canopies,

　　  Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold.

　　The rest is solitude; the church, grown old,

　　  Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies.

　　Wellnigh again its mighty frame-work grows

　　  To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn

　　From hot humanity's impatient woes;

　　  The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn,

　　And in the east one giant window shows

　　  The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn.