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! |