Die Marienprozession

From every tower it hurls itself, stream upon stream,

down-surging metal in such masses,

as though down there, in the mould of the alleys,

a bright day were to rise up out of bronze-casting,

there is to be seen the brightly-bound procession

of the light-footed girls and the new-made boys,

and how it struck up waves and drifted and bore on,

held back below by the uncertain

weight of the banners, and by obstacles

checked — invisible as the hand of the Lord;

by the upswing of startled censers,

which, flying, all seven of them, as if in fright,

tug hard at their silver chains.

in which all this falters and rushes and rolls:

the thing approaching, the chryselephantine thing,

out of which up toward the balconies canopies

rear up, swaying in their hangings of gold.

borne aloft and in Spanish vestments,

the old statue with the small, hot

face and the Child upon her hand,

and they kneel down, the nearer and nearer it comes,

in its crown growing old, unaware, behind the times,

and still holding the act of blessing woodenly,

out of the brocade that makes its grand display.

it passes by — they that gaze up shyly from below —

it seems to command its bearers

with a lift of its eyebrows,

haughty, displeased and decisive:

so that they marvel, halt and deliberate

and at last move off, hesitating. But she takes

and goes, alone, as if on paths she knows,

toward the thunder of bells of the wide-open cathedral

borne on a hundred shoulders, womanly, to meet it.