’Tis Easter; and they sing the risen Christ—
How jubilant St. Peter’s wondrous choir!
But now no vision of the Evangelist,
Preceding throne and tiar,
Is borne amid the mystic candlesticks;
No waving feathers flash with starry eyes;
In the gold chalice and the gold-rayed pyx,
For paschal sacrifice,
No pontiff consecrates the elements;
And dost remember, in the olden time,