The Lord hath given, and he takes away,
And still thy name with fervent blessings greet,—
Thou who didst weep!
Thou who didst weep!”
The windows of the Basilica had all been darkened and the lamps doubled; and to those standing opposite the portal the two long rows of columns and the climbing lights and upper glow might have seemed like Jacob’s vision of the angelic stairway stretching from earth to heaven, from shadow to light.
The hymn ended, they took up their dead and went on in silence. The road that led to the cemetery led nowhere else. It turned from the plain at the south side of the Basilica, hidden by the elevation of the little rock plateau on which the structure was set, and passing along the side of it, entered a deep and narrow ravine at the back. This ravine was nearly half a mile long and walled with precipitous rocks that shut out everything but the line of sky above and the topmost point of one white snow-peak, serene against the blue.
Entering the ravine was to be reminded infallibly of the “valley of the shadow of death.” Here the prayers began. A single voice in the centre of the procession exclaimed:—
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” and like waves the response rolled to front and rear and back again,—“Blessed be the name of the Lord!”
The Miserere was repeated in the same way, and the Psalm “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
The sun entered the ravine with them. There was only one hour of the day when a direct beam shone in, and that, except when the days were longest, scarcely reached the foot-way. It shone along over their heads now; and as the road near its end made a turn further inward to the mountains, it shone on a great golden legend set high above on an arch springing from cliff to cliff:—