Classic Poem

A gray and dusty daylight flows
athwart the shatter'd traceries,
pale absence of the ruin'd rose.

Here once, on labour-harden'd knees,
beneath the kindly vaulted gloom
that gather'd them in quickening ease,

they saw the rose of heaven bloom,
alone, in heights of musky air,
with many an angel's painted plume.

So, shadowing forth their dim-felt prayer,
the daedal glass compell'd to grace
the outer day's indifferent stare,

where now its disenhallow'd face
beholds the petal-ribs enclose
nought, in their web of shatter'd lace,

save this pale absence of the rose.