ST. PAUL'S.
Joaquin Miller
see above a crowded world a cross - Of gold. It grows like some great cedar tree
- Upon a peak in shroud of cloud and moss,
- Made bare and bronzed in far antiquity.
- Stupendous pile! The grim Yosemite
- Has rent apart his granite wall, and thrown
- Its rugged front before us....Here I see
- The strides of giant men in cryptic stone,
- And turn, and slow descend where sleep the great alone.
- The mighty captains have come home to rest;
- The brave return'd to sleep amid the brave.
- The sentinel that stood with steely breast
- Before the fiery hosts of France, and gave
- The battle-cry that roll'd, receding wave
- On wave, the foeman flying back and far,
- Is here. How still! Yet louder now the grave
- Than ever-crashing Belgian battle-car
- Or blue and battle-shaken seas of Trafalgar.
- The verger stalks in stiff importance o'er
- The hollow, deep, and strange responding stones;
- He stands with lifted staff unchid before
- The forms that once had crush'd or fashion'd thrones,
- And coldly points you out the coffin'd bones:
- He stands composed where armies could not stand
- A little time before. . . .The hand disowns
- The idle sword, and now instead the grand
- And golden cross makes sign and takes austere command.