This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
202
a white sunday.
A WHITE SUNDAY.
IENTERED not the church this good Lord's Day,
Albeit my heart was with the worshippers,
Who stood beneath the arched and frescoed roof,
And sang to Him arisen. The same song
I heard innumerable happy birds
Trilling outside my window, in the boughs,
Among the blossoms;—and the blossoms sang,—
I dreamed it not,—"The Lord is risen indeed."
Surely there never fell so pure a light
From any crystalline cathedral-dome,
As that borne down with the soft summer rain
Through the pink apple-blooms, the lucid green
Of June's uncankered leaves, and branches gray,
Scutcheoned with lichens, tracery more antique
Than earls or bishops bear upon their shields.

A color not of earth, a tenderness
Of spotless snow and rose-bloom, clothed the tree,
That stood up underneath the heavens, one flower.