THE CATHEDRAL OF RHEIMS by PAUL FORT

Infamous general, Baron von Plattenberg, if this song of love for my church from
you derives its source, in settlement I give, sure of their lasting force, the
buffet of the poets and the scaffold of the Word -- but I've good store of blows
to pay my votive debt to all the vaunting Huns that I have ever met.

Before its portals, near "The Golden Lion" I was born. -- A babe, my eyes yet
dimmed by shimmering Paradise, I dreamed it, and perhaps saw hazy towers uprear
music diaphanous athwart the morning skies, such as they may appear where
subtlest angles range whose senses, light as air, cohere and interchange.

The cathedral, too, was chanted, no doubt, that eventide, real or unreal in
fluctuant majesty, by the angel choirs of Rheims for my nativity, or, being but
one soul in flower and naught beside, just by my guardian angel, God's blessing
to impart. I swear that even then it @3enchanted@1 my French heart.

The angelic murmuring turned, imperceptibly, upon my mother's lips, to a human
lullaby. And soon the dire complaint of good king Jean Renaud (albeit in those
days the words I did not know) made vanish from my sight in the abysms dim, till
the day I die, the chant of the bright cherubim.

Infamous general, Baron von Plattenberg, if this song of love for my church from
you derives its source, in settlement I give, sure of their lasting force, the
buffet of the poets and the scaffold of the Word -- but I've good store of blows
to pay my votive debt to all the vaunting Huns that I have ever met.

Mother, one day your song broke off, when scarce begun, on the word "war"; and
you, bent toward your little son and, pressing to my brow your fingers'
purities, all joyously exclaimed: "He sees! He sees! He sees!" My father smiled
to see that child-like haste of thine to turn my virgin eyes toward the great
church sublime:

"Look!" Yes! Though certainly my eyes, unsealed but then, could make out naught
beyond the blueness of the pane and the snowy curtains there above the ogive
calm, and your hands, so white they fed my soul a milky balm. For me the
cathedral's birth more gradually took place, immense, broad, real, dreamed, in a
single moment's space.

Its birth took place for me, divined by my glad eyes, on a morning in the spring
when crying swallows soared. My child's hands clutched at it in the azure of the
skies. Reborn with every dawn, it kept a faithful ward, all habited by saints,
by heroes and by kings, by angels in mid-flight, a tree athrill with wings.

Great plaything of my soul, French grove of stones, that came with your two
towers to be my boyhood's giant toys, you have remained the one sport that my
soul enjoys with your three porches high, in triangle of flame, and over them
the rose where pigeons in their flight peck with a greedy bill at prismed motes
of light.

Then, my Cathedral, when in after days I came with your angel-pinions white the
wings of a kite to blend, how with my boisterous cries I made your echoes quail,
and, following my cries, hair streaming in the wind, surrounded your old walls
with many a children's game, but when I was your guest, a lad distraught and
pale,

launched on the eager quest of the flower of ecstacy -- hands reaching towards
the light that your gemmed windows lave -- ah! how the sacred fright that doth
the soul surprise o'ercame me in the nave where sang those accents grave well-
known to children's hearts in the days of Paradise, when I whispered to thee,
"I" -- how thou returnedst it me!

Infamous general, Baron von Plattenberg, if this song of love for my church from
you derives its source, in return I give you, sure of their immortal force, the
buffet of the poets and the scaffold of the Word -- but I've good store of hate
to pay my votive debt to all the vaunting Huns that I have ever met.

And when I once had dreamed, Basilica, of thee, thou didst obsess my dreams
above all earthly things. Thy saints and thy apostles, thy angels and our kings,
with those two mighty towers the flush of dawn prolongs, and thy windows'
miracles in warm, prismatic throngs, Basilica, enthralled my nights of infancy.

Your forest o'er me spreads its faces intertwined, and like great trunks
embraced by gnarled lianas stout, buttresses, capitals of an infernal kind,
gables and shafts, arouse a diabolic rout, subtle, persuasive fiends, gross
demons from the Pit or strange, ethereal shapes, haunting and exquisite.

One portico supports Hell itself: yes, plain to view, on the church's northern
wall, its fires congealed by frost. Eh, what of that! They'll still have heat
enough to roast prelates that had black souls and croziered abbes, too. But what
good humour's there? One would imagine that they quite enjoyed it, trussed in
Satan's sulphurous vat.

To the sound of Sabbath bells, the chime my dream attunes, that Portal vast, the
door of the Virgin, now doth ries and her rose-windowed walls where blue Heaven
echellons ten winged legions, decked with mitres and with crowns (seeming some
fragrant bower all echelloned with blooms), bear Our Blessed One and God who
crowns her in the skies.

Up from a dais filled with belfries small it surges, as a sweet, country sun
doth o'er the sky-line start, and, poised in billowing mist, the Rose its
vermeil heart, 'mid tremulous splendours, swift from
prisoning night emerges, launched in the dazzling day like some resplendent
lance, up to the sky? Ah, no! To where the kings of France

assembled, side by side, fix their regards on France, yonder, beneath the
towers, an audience august. Here is the snowy flock of our royal swains robust
that a blazing glory now exalts! . . . O flame intense! Lo, all ascends! The
turn of these proud towers has come, and, gesturing their love, they mount to
Heaven's blue dome.

Infamous general, Baron von Plattenberg, if this song of love and dream from you
derives its source, in return I give you, sure of their immortal force the
buffet of the poets and the scaffold of the Word -- but I've good store of hate
to pay my votive debt to all the vaunting Huns that I have ever met.

From the flaming porticos of Christ and of Saint Paul, and the myriad window-
flare, the towers like incense rise. On these the fancy broods and just beyond
them spies uplifting tree-trunks, dart, great bows in parallel: bushes and trees
of stone, how clear one sees them all! Even the wandering Beasts that in the
Forest dwell.

Whence comes this high, clear noise the echoes now repeat? A bedside angel
sounds his silver trumpet sweet? No, dream deludes my sense. Towards the
cathedral square I needs must turn my eyes: this clear sound comes from there.
Thither let all the eyes of my rapt vision bend and taste their pleasure there
before the dream doth end.

Jeanne d'Arc, O ghostly Maid adored, you are there anew! Lifting your standard
high the herald sounds, and Charles, in royal purple clothed, doth, docile,
follow you. But see, by a people hedged that all about you swirls, calls to you,
loves you, seeks, presses and follows you -- O Shepherdess! -- in sign of
mounting hope advance, led by your form the flock of future kings of France.

Infamous general, Baron von Plattenberg, if this song of love and dream from you
derives its source in return I leave you, sure of their immortal force, the
buffet of the poets and the scaffold of the Word, -- but I've good store of
shame to pay my votive debt to all the vaunting Huns that I have ever met.

Into the church they plunge, the peoples, kings and knights, to the cry of
Jeanne, and now the flag that o'er her streams such fervour propagates almost
the tumult seems the sound of sacred fires that God Himself ignites, and lo, it
burns indeed! . . . the Cathedral, soul of souls, fervent, to heaven's high
vault in roaring gusts it rolls.

O vision of my youth, 'tis needful that you be (and utterly you are!) the Verity
for France. Dream where my great Cathedral had thought to frighten me -- changed
into soaring flame illumining our lands, -- lyric yet Gallic still, to you I
owed the grace of singing only songs full-flavoured with my race.

The Basilica the form of that keen flame assumed when from the heart of Jean
d'Orbais that fire did part. Higher, more quenchless still o'er the pyre of
Jeanne it loomed, that holocaust towards God kindled in each French heart. As
soon hope to prevail 'gainst starry skies eterne, Baron von Plattenberg, as this
to quench or burn.

Then thus, our innocent Baron von Plattenberg, I hail you! This song of love for
my church I dedicate to you, @3hoch!@1 and I give you (sure they endure the ages
through) the buffet of France, and my Lyre, high yard where now I nail you.
Strings broken by my hand, unpitying scourge and ban to all eternity the loathed
Barbarian!

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