Classic Poem

I

The gold of nimbus and of background sky,
Around the auburn heads of sweet young saints
Still glows in frescoed cloisters; but the paints
Are fading on the wall since Faith's good-bye.

And you, blond angel throngs, who stand and try
Your citherns' golden strings; the colour faints
Upon your pure green robes, which mildew taints;
You sing your last hosanna, ere you die.

The age that made the aureoled is long dead;
The gold behind their heads is sinking sun,
And night will wrap them in its pall of lead:

They are the dream-shapes of a time when none
Hoped earthly good; and long by man's dark bed
They stood and smiled. They fade; their task is done.

II

In or and azure were they shrined of old,
Where led dim aisle to glowing stained-glass rose,
Like Life's dim lane, with Heaven at its close;
Where censer swung, and organ-thunder rolled;

Where, mitred, croziered, and superbly stoled,
Pale pontiffs gleamed, in dusky minster shows;
Where, like a soul that trembling skyward goes,
The Easter hymn soared up on wings of gold.

And now they stand, with aureoles that time dims,
Near young Greek fauns that pagan berries wreathe,
In crowded glaring galleries of dead art.

Their hands still fold; their lips still sing faint hymns;
Or are they prayers that beautiful shapes breathe
For shelter in some cold eclectic heart?