Let us sing, to end our lay, Normandy's azure skies, fairest the Kingdom knows, or the Republic rather, so well contrived to cover both hell and paradise, comprised of coal, of blue, and of seraphic grey. In missals I have conned such heavens have smiled on me, arching above the broils of angels and of fiends, in the world's primal days, or flashing from the high cathedral's jewelled panes in legends of Marie, Clotilde, or Radegonde. To abase the dragon proud, Saint Michael plunges thence. There the mild virgin sways a Christ, on slender knees. Skies, ever dappled o'er, where, black, the Demon plays on the checker-board of cloud all the good saints of France 'gainst God, who, as his use is, betting his trusting flocks on the virtues of his saints, above the harvests, loses! And fierce the thunder shocks, wind howls, and lightning rends. The hail, in Normandy, intimidates the fowls. Skies, to exorcise the soul of which I'm the hydra dread, from your pious reservoirs pour holy water down, or, better, if you fear some hole would hide my form, skies, great skies, dappled o'er, rain cider on my head! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AMORETTI: 64 by EDMUND SPENSER ST. AGNES' MORNING by MAXWELL ANDERSON ON THE DEATH OF MR. JAMES VALENTINE by JAMES HAY BEATTIE SEASIDE SONG: 1 by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING by ROBERT BURNS |