Poems (Eckley)/The Alps' Cathedral

by Sophia May Eckley

THE ALPS CATHEDRAL.

HE village church, its joyous bells
 Are ringing music chimes;
Filling the air with floating verse,
 Like a poet with his rhymes.

'Tis Sunday, and the villagers
 Their weekly toil lay by,
To meet the day of holy rest,
 In bright festivity.

Yes! 'tis Sabbath in the valley,
 'Tis Sabbath on the height;
How solemn, deep, mysterious, is
 That Sabbath infinite.

There no rude jar, no earthly voice
 Rends the translucent air,
But surpliced rocks of glittering snows
 Are priests who worship there.

Then go to this grand church with me,
 Not in the vale below,
But upward on those icy peaks,
 Where angels come and go.

A vast Cathedral! sunlit walls
 Of amethystine glow,
Of emerald green, of ruby blush,
 With polished floor of snow.

See the long aisles, the glittering nave,
 The choir of glacier blue,
Hear the "Amen" from ceaseless rills,
 In solemn cadence flow.

And the deep diapason of
 The thund'ring torrent's swell,
The organ of these awful heights,
 The avalanche's peal!

Then mark the niches, where enshrined
 Are statues cut in snow;
No! no! they're angels! look again,
 See how they come and go.

And hear the voices from the pines,
 Far, far they chant below,
Marching like armies up the steep,
 But pause at steps of snow.

But who of earth may enter here?
 What voices join to share
In the devotion of this Church—
 This Alpine Church of prayer?

'Tis a Cathedral at whose door
 But they should enter in,
Who've washed their robes from valley-stains—
 Earth's valley-stains of sin.

O spirits of departed life!
 Are ye not here with me—
A lonely child of earth who'd mount
 Those heights to God with ye?

Courmajeur, 1861.