Victorian Ode for Jubilee Day, 1897

Night; and the street a corpse beneath the moon, Upon the threshold of the jubilant day That was to follow soon; Thickened with inundating dark ’Gainst which the drowning lamps kept struggle; pole And plank cast rigid shadows; ’twas a stark Thing waiting for its soul, The bones of the preluded pomp. I saw In the cloud-sullied moon a pale array, A lengthened apparition, slowly draw; And as it came, Brake all the street in phantom flame Of flag and flower and hanging, shadowy show Of the to-morrow’s glories, as might suit A pageant of the dead; and spectral bruit I heard, where stood the dead to watch the dead, The long Victorian line that passed with printless tread. First went the holy poets, two on two, And music, sown along the hardened ground, Budded like frequence of glad daisies, where Those sacred feet did fare; Arcadian pipe, and psaltery, around, And stringèd viol, sound To make for them melodious due.