Gaunt arches push up their whited cones,

And cover the sparse worshipers with dead men’s stones.

Behind his shambling choristers, with flattened feet

And red-flapped hood, the Bishop walks, complete

In old, frayed ceremonial. The organ wheezes

A moldy psalm-tune, and a verger sneezes.

But the great Cathedral spears into the sky

Shouting for joy.

What is the red-flapped Bishop praying for, by the bye?

Heaven’s Jester
or
The Message of a White Rose