'If you loved her living, my Romeo, what were your love could you but
see her dead!' for indeed life has no beauty so wonderful as the beauty
of death.
And, as in all places and times, there was a base remnant that gaped and
worshipped not, and in their hearts resented all this distinction paid
to a nobility they could not recognise, as the like had grumbled when
Cimabue's Madonna had been carried through the streets in glory. But of
these there is no need that we should take account, any more than of the
beasts that moved head down amid the pastures outside the town, knowing
not of the wonder that was passing within. For the ass will munch his
thistles though the Son of Man be his rider, nor will the sheep look
aside from his grazing though Apollo be the herdsman.
* * * * *
At length the sacred pageant was ended, gone like the passing of an
aerial music, and the people went to their homes silent, with haunted
eyes; while the Earth, which had given this beauty, took it back to
herself, and one more Persephone of human loveliness was shut within the
gates of the forgetful grave.