"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome15
Praises God from Peter's dome."
Said Theocrite, "Would God that I
Might praise him, that great way, and die!"
Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.20
With God a day endures alway,
A thousand years are but a day.
God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight."
Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,25
Spread his wings and sank to earth;
Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,
Lived there, and played the craftsman well;
And morning, evening, noon, and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.30
And from a boy, to youth he grew;
The man put off the stripling's hue;
The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay;