<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">Rheims Cathedral -- 1914</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">A <span class="smallcaps">wingèd</span> death has smitten dumb thy bells,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">And poured them molten from thy tragic towers:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Now are the windows dust that were thy flowers</p><p class="line">Patterned like frost, petalled like asphodels.</p><p class="line">Gone are the angels and the archangels,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">The saints, the little lamb above thy door,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">The shepherd Christ! They are not, any more,</p><p class="line">Save in the soul where exiled beauty dwells.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But who has heard within thy vaulted gloom</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That old divine insistence of the sea,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">When music flows along the sculptured stone</p><p class="line">In tides of prayer, for him thy windows bloom</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Like faithful sunset, warm immortally!</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Thy bells live on, and Heaven is in their tone!</p></div><p class="byline">Grace Hazard Conkling</p></body></html> · Great War