LE MANS CATHEDRAL

Behold the Word of Glory's incarnation !
A diadem of light-clad glass and stone ;
What breadth of faith, what depth of wisdom vision !
With courtier chapels that, like suckers, throw
Their slender buttress stems above, and high
To meet their twin at shoulder, hip and thigh.
But nestling 'neath our airborne Saviour's crown
The Virgin's chapel bears the Son apace,
With storied chapels lining-up to own
Their share of pain and load, thus straining to embrace
This leap - unique to Faith's momentous Grace.

One early morning, seven forty-five -
The light the stained-glass windows shed
Extended, streamed, then angled, shied away
To animate the pillared, vaulted canopies
Where play of light and shade replaces breeze
That stirs, and soughs, through summer branch and leaves,
Exhaling freshness, cool and gracious ease,
As dew bedecks the fox-glove, fern and blade
In forest space in which enlightened shade
Reveals the mysteries of new-born days.

Re-creation, thus writ in glass and stone,
In timeless speckled stone of lime and sand,
By men who worked and spoke and prayed in stone,
Who carved the light, and spread the shade on hand,
To calmly store, then urge the message home ;
So column meets its arch, each arch its column
Greets, and meets to part, so parts and meets
Again, to dance - for ever, and again ;
Of this there is no end in sight - Amen !