Sweet Hours by Carmen Sylva — Read

Methought that unto God I prayed: Oh, Lord! / If thou wouldst deign to let poor me behold / Thy greatness, so that with my human brain / I understood it! Thus I spoke, and Lo! / I stood alone upon a mountain rock, / In utter darkness, towering rocks beyond / The dread abyss, that at my feet lay black / And fathomless, yielding no answer to / The searching eye. And, measureless, the sky / Above was dark'ning into endless night.

Then, from the deep did vapours seem to rise / In white procession, denser, and yet denser, / Until into a rising column they / Began to form -- a column like a mountain, / That rose and rose and rose up to the vaults / Of darkness which it seemed to carry, all / One mass of light. And when I looked again, / That column built itself of millions and / Millions of milk-white stars that moved and shone / And seemed to lift the skies unto a height / That human sight and human word could not / Attain. And whilst I looked and wondered at / The seething worlds, the column changed and formed / Itself into the statue Buonarroti / Has made of Moses, only reaching from / The deep into the heavens, white and bright, / As if three suns, themselves invisible, / Had shed their light upon the statue, or / As if an inner light shone out from it.