* * * * *
The whole face turned upon me full.
And I spread myself beneath it,
As when the bleacher spreads, to seethe it
In the cleansing sun, his wool,—
Steeps in the flood of noontide whiteness
Some defiled, discoloured web—
So lay I, saturate with brightness.
His sin thus purged (how exquisitely wrought out the lovely simile of
the sun-cleansed wool!), he is “caught up in the whirl and drift of the
vesture’s amplitude,” and thus clinging to the garment’s hem, is carried
across land and sea—to a scene so complete a contrast to the one he has
just left that he is confused, and some time elapses before he discovers
that he is in front of St. Peter’s at Rome:—