Classic Poem

It was a stormy night in early spring.
Long after sunset pale-green rifts of light
Burned in the west, changing to vitreous white,
And when these faded darkness was a thing
Strangely portentous. There went whirring wing
Low in the air of birds in furious flight —
Wild fowls blown from their courses in the night.
It was a night for spectral imaging.
A sinless maiden in her chamber high
That Easter advent midnight heard a call:
Arise! arise! And startled from her bed
She saw a glory break along the sky;
It lit with flame the cross upon her wall,
And through the splendor crimson rain was shed.