Rubens' Innocents

IF all those tumbling babes of heaven,

Plump cherubim with blown cheeks,

Could vault in these warm skies, or leaven

Our starry silent mountain-peaks—

O painter of chub-faced, shining-thighed

Fat Ganymedes of God—what noise

Would churn between the clouds and stride

Far downward from those rose-mouthed boys!

Down to our spires their lusty whooping,

Fanfares of Paradise, would speed,

Far down to dark-faced clergy stooping

Round altars of their doleful creed;

And God, whose wings of silver sweep

Like metal afire on heaven's rim,

Would daze them with a twinkling peep

Of those young moon-stained cherubim—

Then, for a trice, their skies might sparkle,

And some gold ichor splash amid

Those most respectable, patriarchal

Purveyors of stale pardons, hid

Behind their old cathedral closes

From this unguessed, unguessable God,

Shining before their learned noses

Down roads that Peter Rubens trod.