Classic and Contemporary Poetry
SAN MICHELE DI PAGANA, by ANNE GOODWIN WINSLOW First Line: Why light your candles on a day like this Last Line: His sins all unforgiven! Subject(s): Religion; Saints; Theology | ||||||||
Why light your candles on a day like this, The sunshine being what it is And faith not quite the thing it was before On the Ligurian shore? Your restless bells that call again to prayer With such light voices on so blue an air, Seem ringing something foreign to the sense Of mortal penitence; And solemn angels should not stand like these, Blowing their trumpets in the olive trees That grow so intimately near and tall Beside your tinted wall. Inside there is the pallid pictured Lord, And Michael, holding his avenging sword And a red Lucifer beneath his heel, But not the eyes that steal Where those escutcheons that the morning weaves With trellised clusters and enameled leaves Are framed in slender ogives opening wide On all the sea outside. Ah, little church, set in too fair a place, Hold fast your spiritual and inward grace, Lest beauty beating so on every side With waves unsanctified, Through deep ablutions that are strange to you Should fashion man's mysterious soul anew And get him in a shorter way to heaven, His sins all unforgiven! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MYSTIC BOUNCE by TERRANCE HAYES MATHEMATICS CONSIDERED AS A VICE by ANTHONY HECHT UNHOLY SONNET 11 by MARK JARMAN SHINE, PERISHING REPUBLIC by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE COMING OF THE PLAGUE by WELDON KEES A LITHUANIAN ELEGY by ROBERT KELLY ALCESTIS by ANNE GOODWIN WINSLOW THE BIRTH TOKENS (VARIATION ON A THEME FROM MENANDER) by ANNE GOODWIN WINSLOW |
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