LAUS MARIAE

There is a name like some deep melody

Hallowed by sundown, delicate as the plash

Of lonely waves on solitary lakes

And rounded as the sudden-bursting bloom

Of bold, deep-throated notes in a midnight cloud

When shadowy belfries far away roll out

Across the dark their avalanche of sound.

It is a wild voice lost in the wail of the wind;

The silvery-twinkling plectrum of the rain

Plays in the poplar tree no other tune

And pines intone it softly as a prayer

In leafy litanies.

The name is raised

Even to God's ear from ancient arches dim

With caverned twilight and dull altar smoke

Where tapers weave athwart the azure haze

Innumerable pageantries of dusk.

Low-voiced and soft-eyed women must they live

Who bear that holy name. And now for one

Time has no other honor than to be

The meaning of an unremembered rhyme,

The breath of a forgotten singer's song.