d a common church--that stood and stood
Through war and fire and pestilence, through ravage
Of time and kings and conquerors, till at last
The century dawned which promised common men
The things they long had hoped for!
O the time
Showed a fair face, was daughter of great Demos,
Flamboyant, bore a light, laughed loud and free,
And feared not any man--until--until--
There sprang a mailed figure from a throne,
Gorgeous, imperial, glowing--a monstrosity
Magnificent as death and as death terrible.
It walked these aisles and saw the humble ones,
Peter the fisherman, James and John, the shopkeepers,
And Mary, sweet, gay, innocent and poor.
Loud did it laugh and long. 'These peaceful folk!
What place have they in my great armed world?'
Then with its thunderbolts of fire it drove
These saints from out their places--breaking roof,
Wall, window, portal--and the great grave arch
Smoked with the awful funeral smoke of doom.

"Thus died they and their church--but from the wreck
Of fire and smoke and broken wood and stone
There rose a figure greater far than they--
Their Lord, who dwells within no house of hands;
Whose beauty hath no need of any form!
Out from the fire He passed, and round Him went
Marie and Jean and Etienne and Francois,
And they went singing, singing, through their France--
And Italy--and England--and the world!"

When Mrs. Burton began her recitation she sat up on the edge of her
couch and leaning forward kept her eyes fastened sometimes on the floor,
sometimes on the picture of the great cathedral. Now and then her gaze
quickly swept the faces of her audience.

She was wondering if the poem had bored any one of them. It was a long
poem and perhaps its spiritual meaning would not be altogether plain.

However, as the poem reached its conclusion, and her voice with its
dramatic power and sweetness made the picture of the peasant people and
their peasant church a visible and compelling thing, she no longer felt
fearful.

The faces of the girls before her were fine and serious; Bettina and
Marta, who cared more for poetry and art than the others, had flushed
and their eyes were filled with tears.

As Mrs. Burton finished, it was as if one could actually hear the new
spirit of brotherhood which Christ preached two thousand years ago,
"singing, singing, through the world.