A Ballade of a Book of Hours
as it some sad-eyed Florentine
Within his cloistered cell of yore
Who lit this painted page of thine
With treasures from his ancient lore,
And kneeling in the twilight bore
The burden of his Saviour's pain,
And even with the sunrise saw
The coming of his Lord again?
And when he found the rest he sought,
The shadows that he hungered for,
Perchance a lady of the Court
Within her jeweled bosom wore
His books among her billets, or
Beneath her scented pillow lain,
Who daily in her life foreswore
The coming of his Lord again.
And now beneath another sky,
Amid the city's ceaseless roar
Unheeded but for such as I,
You wait upon a shelf before
A dark and dusty bookshop's door,
And long for loving hands in vain,
As he in that dim corridor,
The coming of his Lord again.
Envoi
Book, as my lady's monitor,
You shall forget the world's disdain,
So had your master sighed no more
The coming of his Lord again.
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