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CHANT. Kyrie Eleison! | |
| Christe Eleison! | |
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ELSIE. I am at home here in my Father’s house? | |
| These paintings of the Saints upon the walls | |
| Have all familiar and benignant faces. | 5 |
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PRINCE HENRY. The portraits of the family of God! | |
| Thine own hereafter shall be placed among them. | |
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ELSIE. How very grand it is and wonderful! | |
| Never have I beheld a church so splendid! | |
| Such columns, and such arches, and such windows, | 10 |
| So many tombs and statues in the chapels, | |
| And under them so many confessionals. | |
| They must be for the rich. I should not like | |
| To tell my sins in such a church as this. | |
Who built it?
PRINCE HENRY. A great master of his craft, | 15 |
| Erwin von Steinbach; but not he alone, | |
| For many generations labored with him. | |
| Children that came to see these Saints in stone, | |
| As day by day out of the blocks they rose, | |
| Grew old and died, and still the work went on, | 20 |
| And on, and on, and is not yet completed. | |
| The generation that succeeds our own | |
| Perhaps may finish it. The architect | |
| Built his great heart into these sculptured stones, | |
| And with him toiled his children, and their lives | 25 |
| Were builded, with his own, into the walls, | |
| As offerings unto God. You see that statue | |
| Fixing its joyous, but deep-wrinkled eyes | |
| Upon the Pillars of the Angels yonder. | |
| That is the image of the master, carved | 30 |
| By the fair hand of his own child, Sabina. | |
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ELSIE. How beautiful is the column that he looks at! | |
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PRINCE HENRY. That, too, she sculptured. At the base of it | |
| Stand the Evangelists; above their heads | |
| Four Angels blowing upon marble trumpets, | 35 |
| And over them the blessed Christ, surrounded | |
| By his attendant ministers, upholding | |
The instruments of his passion.
ELSIE. O my Lord! | |
| Would I could leave behind me upon earth | |
| Some monument to thy glory, such as this! | 40 |
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PRINCE HENRY. A greater monument than this thou leavest | |
| In thine own life, all purity and love! | |
| See, too, the Rose, above the western portal | |
| Resplendent with a thousand gorgeous colors, | |
| The perfect flower of Gothic loveliness! | 45 |
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ELSIE. And, in the gallery, the long line of statues, | |
| Christ with his twelve Apostles watching us! A BISHOP in armor, booted and spurred, passes with his train. | |
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PRINCE HENRY. But come away; we have not time to look. | |
| The crowd already fills the church, and yonder | |
| Upon a stage, a herald with a trumpet, | 50 |
| Clad like the Angel Gabriel, proclaims | |
| The Mystery that will now be represented. | |
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