I sat me weary on a pillar's base, And leaned against the shaft; for broad moonlight O'erflowed the peacefulness of cloistered space, A shore of shadow slanting from the right:
The great cathedral's western front stood there,5A wave-worn rock in that calm sea of air.
Before it, opposite my place of rest, Two figures faced each other, large, austere;A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast, An angel standing in the moonlight clear; 10So mighty by magnificence of form, They were not dwarfed beneath that mass enorm.
Upon the cross-hilt of the naked sword The angel's hands, as prompt to smite, were held;His vigilant intense regard was poured 15Upon the creature placidly unquelled, Whose front was set at level gaze which took No heed of aught, a solemn trance-like look.
And as I pondered these opposed shapes My eyelids sank in stupor, that dull swoon20Which drugs and with a leaden mantle drapes The outworn to worse weariness.But soon A sharp and clashing noise the stillness broke, And from the evil lethargy I woke.
The angel's wings had fallen, stone on stone, 25And lay there shattered; hence the sudden sound:
A warrior leaning on his sword alone Now watched the sphinx with that regard profound;The sphinx unchanged looked forthright, as aware Of nothing in the vast abyss of air.30Again I sank in that repose unsweet, Again a clashing noise my slumber rent;The warrior's sword lay broken at his feet:
An unarmed man with raised hands impotent Now stood before the sphinx, which ever kept35Such mien as if open eyes it slept.
My eyelids sank in spite of wonder grown;A louder crash upstartled me in dread:
The man had fallen forward, stone on stone, And lay there shattered, with his trunkless head 40Between the monster's large quiescent paws, Beneath its grand front changeless as life's laws.
The moon had circled westward full and bright, And made the temple-front a mystic dream, And bathed the whole enclosure with its light, 45The sworded angel's wrecks, the sphinx supreme:
I pondered long that cold majestic face Whose vision seemed of infinite void space.
