Our Emperor built a marble church
So holy never a bird might perch
On cross or crocket or gilded crown,
A fretted minster of far renown,
But still the spire came crashing down.
_They stoned the swallow and limed the lark;
A rosy throat was an easy mark;
The tiniest wren that built her nest
In Christ's own halo, on Mary's breast,
Was scared away like a demon guest._
Once, twice, thrice, the glistening spire
That soared from the central tower, higher
Than all its clustered pinnacles, fell,
And not one of the carven saints could tell
The cause, though the emperor quizzed them well.
Down in the cloister all strewn with chips
Of alabaster and ivory tips
Of pastoral staffs and angel wings,
In a rainbow ruin of sacred things
He held high court in the way of kings.
_All the while in a royal rage
He pelted with fragments of foliage,
Curly acanthus and vineleaf scroll,
Finial, dogtooth and aureole,
The linnets and finches who came to condole._
Crowned with a cobwebby cardinal's hat
That swooped from the vaulted roof like a bat,
On a tilted porphyry plinth for a throne,
The emperor summoned in thunder tone
The hallowed folk of metal and stone.
Martyrs, apostles, one and all,
Tiptoed down from the quaking wall;
Crusaders, uncrossing their legs of brass,
Sprang from their tombs; over crackle of glass
Balaam rode on a headless ass.
But not one of the sculptured cavalcade
Flocking from choir and creamy facade,
Deep-arched portal and pillared aisle
Had a word on his lips, though all the while
Gentle St. Francis was seen to smile.
_Whistles, chuckles, warbles tried
To give the answer the saints denied;
Gurgles, tinkles, twitters, trills,
Carols wild as wayward rills
Troubadouring daffodils._
St. Peter, high in his canopied niche
Set with jewels exceeding rich,
Was dancing a hornpipe over the clock,
But before the gargoyles had time to mock
From his shoulder crowed St. Peter's cock.
"_Kirikiree!_ Creative Love
That folds the emperor folds the dove.
No church is finished, though grand it be,
That lacks the beauty of charity.
Buttress your spire. _Kirikiree!_"
So our Emperor reared the spire anew,
Yon shaft of glory that cleaves the blue,
Held in its place by the lightest things
God ever fashioned, the wee, soft wings
Of the birds that join in our worshipings.