This from the "Orient Ode," a pageant of compelling beauty, is already dear to every lover of Francis Thompson:
Lo, in the sanctuaried East,
Day, a dedicated priest
In all his robes pontifical exprest,
Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly,
From out its Orient tabernacle drawn,
Yon orbèd sacrament confest
Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn;
And when the grave procession's ceased,
The earth with due illustrious rite
Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly
Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte,
His sacerdotal stoles unvest—
Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast,
The sun in august exposition meetly
Within the flaming monstrance of the West.
It is impossible to quote here from the "Ode to the Setting Sun," with its half-tragic blending of death and birth, or from the wild Bacchic gladness of the "Corymbus for Autumn." For Thompson can, and does, rejoice in beauty with the sensuous loveliness of Keats himself; albeit very soon the visible becomes for him a portent and prophecy of the invisible, and through the glad earth-cry roll dim pealings of "a higher and a solemn voice." There is no more representative expression of this very Christian and very poetic attitude than in the lovely Paschal ode, "From the Night of Forebeing," with its inspiring burden:
Look up, O mortals, and the portent heed:
In very deed
Washed with new fire to their irradiant birth
Reintegrated are the heavens and earth!
From sky to sod,
The world's unfolded blossom smells of God.
