LUIS G. URBINA
313
In the air, long rows of columns.
Bits of wall, like sails in tatters,
Cut the blue, transparent background.
In that glade amid the forest,
Leprous, crumbling, lo, the silent,
Gloomy church stood meditating.
In your eyes the diamonds glitter!
Do you then my tale encourage?
Let them gleam, romantic dreamer!
Long ago, in distant ages . . .
3
But as there exists no sadness
Without comfort, so the ruin,
Standing vast and sad and silent,
In its solitude found pleasure.
Every morn—can you believe it?
At the advent of the dazzling
Earliest gleam of virgin brightness
From the deep, remote horizon's
Lapis-lazuli, there issued
From the architraves and friezes
Of the lofty Gothic belfry,
From the pinions of the angels,
From the walls of chiseled stonework
From the niches of the statues,
Flocks of birds, in endless numbers,
Chirping, twittering and singing.
When the rising sun had kindled
Vivid, bright triumphal arches
Back behind the dim vague mountains
And the mists that veiled the landscape,
On the broken ranks of columns,
On the bent and twisted pillars,
On the shattered spires and summits,
In the aisles and their recesses,
Gleamed and shone—made up of atoms
Restless, brilliant, scintillating—
Thin and subtle golden gauzes,
Like light, filmy shawls in tatters.
