Battle-Retrospect, and Other Poems/Romanesque
ROMANESQUE.
Imagination smote me with his glaive
In Tournay's old cathedral as I stood
With holden eyes, and Magic clapped his hood
Upon me, gazing down its vaulted nave;
I know not what impetuous angel drave
The garish phantoms thence and so renewed
The antique Reverie, and the occult Mood,
Cloaking me in the shadows of the grave—
Vistas I saw of arches without end,
The horrid labyrinths of the Middle Age,
The catacombs of life, which high desire
Taught men by paroxysms to transcend,
Who so aspiring in ecstatic rage,
Transformed this prison to yon soaring choir.