In the Oratory
Arthur Symons
1865 to 1945
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The incense mounted like a cloud,
A golden of languid scent;
Robed priests before the altar bowed,
Expecting the divine event.
Then silence, like a prisoner bound,
Rose, by a mighty hand set free,
And dazzlingly, in shafts of sound,
Thundered Beethoven’s Mass in C.
She knelt in prayer; large lids serene
Lay on the sombre eyes,
As though to veil some seen
Upon the mounts of Paradise.
Her dark face, calm as carven stone.
The face that twilight the day,
Brooded, mysteriously alone,
And infinitely far away.
Inexplicable eyes that drew
Mine eyes adoring, why me
Demand, new Sphinx, the fatal clue
That my doom or conquers thee?