The Cathedral of Rheims

(From the French of Emile Verhaeren)

He who walks through the meadows of ChampagneAt noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,Sees it draw nearLike some great mountain set upon the plain,5From radiant dawn until the close of day,Nearer it growsTo him who goesAcross the country. When tall towers layTheir shadowy pall10Upon his way,He enters, whereThe solid stone is hollowed deep by allIts centuries of beauty and of prayer.Ancient French temple! thou whose hundred kings15Watch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls,Tell me, within thy memory-hallowed hallsWhat chant of triumph, or what war-song rings?Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train,Whose mighty hand Saint Remy's hand did keep20And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleepAn echo of the voice of Charlemagne.For God thou has known fear, when from His sideMen wandered, seeking alien shrines and new,But still the sky was bountiful and blue25And thou wast crowned with France's love and pride.Sacred thou art, from pinnacle to base;And in thy panes of gold and scarlet glassThe setting sun sees thousandfold his face;Sorrow and joy, in stately silence pass30Across thy walls, the shadow and the light;Around thy lofty pillars, tapers whiteIlluminate, with delicate sharp flames,The brows of saints with venerable names,And in the night erect a fiery wall.35A great but silent fervour burns in allThose simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb,And know that down below, beside the Rhine --Cannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line --With blare of trumpets, mighty armies come.40Suddenly, each knows fear;Swift rumours pass, that every one must hear,The hostile banners blaze against the skyAnd by the embassies mobs rage and cry.Now war has come, and peace is at an end.45On Paris town the German troops descend.They are turned back, and driven to Champagne.And now, as to so many weary men,The glorious temple gives them welcome, whenIt meets them at the bottom of the plain.50At once, they set their cannon in its way.There is no gable now, nor wallThat does not suffer, night and day,As shot and shell in crushing torrents fall.The stricken tocsin quivers through the tower;55The triple nave, the apse, the lonely choirAre circled, hour by hour,With thundering bands of fireAnd Death is scattered broadcast among men.And then60That which was splendid with baptismal grace;The stately arches soaring into space,The transepts, columns, windows gray and gold,The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled,The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places,65The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces,All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the LordWere struck and broken by the wanton swordOf sacrilegious lust.O beauty slain, O glory in the dust!70Strong walls of faith, most basely overthrown!The crawling flames, like adders glisteningAte the white fabric of this lovely thing.Now from its soul arose a piteous moan,The soul that always loved the just and fair.75Granite and marble loud their woe confessed,The silver monstrances that Popes had blessed,The chalices and lamps and crosiers rareWere seared and twisted by a flaming breath;The horror everywhere did range and swell,80The guardian Saints into this furnace fell,Their bitter tears and screams were stilled in death.Around the flames armed hosts are skirmishing,The burning sun reflects the lurid scene;The German army, fighting for its life,85Rallies its torn and terrified left wing;And, as they near this placeThe imperial eagles seeBefore them in their flight,Here, in the solemn night,90The old cathedral, to the years to beShowing, with wounded arms, their own disgrace.