AT VESPERS.

High up in the organ-story

A girl stands slim and fair;

And touched with the casement's glory

Gleams out her radiant hair.

The young priest kneels at the altar,

Then lifts the Host above;

And the psalm intoned from the psalter

Is pure with patient love.

A sweet bell chimes; and a censer

Swings gleaming in the gloom;

The candles glimmer and denser

Rolls up the pale perfume.

Then high in the organ choir

A voice of crystal soars,

Of patience and soul's desire,

That suffers and adores.

And out of the altar's dimness

An answering voice doth swell,

Of passion that cries from the grimness

And anguish of its own hell.

High up in the organ-story

One kneels with a girlish grace;

And, touched with the vesper glory,

Lifts her madonna face.

One stands at the cloudy altar,

A form bowed down and thin;

The text of the psalm in the psalter

He reads, is sorrow and sin.