Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, REPOSE OF THE SOUL IN THE WOOD OF L'HAUTIL: THE ABANDONED CHAPEL, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

REPOSE OF THE SOUL IN THE WOOD OF L'HAUTIL: THE ABANDONED CHAPEL, by                    
First Line: In a pool it is reflected fair, where all the frogs to sing are fain, where
Last Line: By day when I have naught to do, at midnight when I bay the fays.
Subject(s): Churches; Cathedrals


In a pool it is reflected fair, where all the frogs to sing are fain, where the
moonlight drinks, and where clouds descend to weep their rain.

'Tis a small, abandoned church, that has no cross, no bell, no coloured glass.
Saints, Virgin, altar -- where are they? No soul doth hither come to pray.

The grass-blades form its flock devout and the stock, that from the fissured
wall and ruined window peereth out with shiverings continual.

Scarce seen when on the road you pass, still through the bay one may descry,
o'er the heap that once its altar was, the stainless azure of its sky.

Beneath a willow's wan regret, 'tis the swallow's mournful friend. Within its
heart uncounted spiders spin webs that with crystal pearls are wet.

'Tis a sweet, small church that holds in fee all treasures on the earth arrayed:
dim silence, steadfast poverty, shade, and the chastity of shade.

All treasures? alas, my God, there lies dead in its crypt illusion pale, despite
its roof that toward the skies uplifts a swaying birch-tree frail.

Like two hands locked in ardent prayer o'er palms Our Saviour sanctifies, the
two halves of the roof arise: 'tis an abandoned chapel bare,

that shakes through all its ivy-leaves, door open to the stranger's tread. The
night of stars it there receives; 'tis the cabin of the shepherd-lad,

and 'tis my refuge . . . There I find asylum in my sadness deep. And often it
has seen me weep -- why? for no cause, to ease my mind -----

my temples couched upon the stones, brows that the stock hath coifed anew (it
even takes for orisons the sobbing that my grief betrays),

by day when I have naught to do, at midnight when I bay the fays.





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