Milan. Da Vinci’s Christ

ALL day long, year after year,
Maid and man and priest and lay
Wander in from crowded streets,
And through the long, cool gallery stray.

And with them, in the fading light,
We loiter past the pictured wall,
Till lo! a face before us comes,
And something wistful seems to fall

From two strange eyes that speak to all;
For here a priest, and there a maid,
Two lads, a soldier, and a bonne,
Before the rail their steps have stayed.

What message bore this awful face,
Through all the waning centuries fled?
What says it to the gazer now?
What said it to the myriad dead

Who came and went like us to-day,
And, pausing here in silence, all
In silence laid their weight of sins
Before this still confessional.

A face more sad man never dreamed,
A face more sweet man never wrought;
So solemn-sad, so solemn-sweet,
Serenely set in quiet thought.

The silent sunlight slips away,
The soldiers pass, the bonne goes by;
The painter drapes his copy in,
And stops his work and heaves a sigh.

And followed by those eyes, that have
The patience of eternity,
We carry to the bustling street
Their loving Benedicite.