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Milan Cathedral
By Herman Melville

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	Through light green haze, a rolling sea
	    Over gardens where redundance flows,
	    The fat old plain of Lombardy,
	The White Cathedral shows.

	    Of Art the miracles
	    Its tribes of pinnacles
	Gleam like to ice-peaks snowed; and higher,
	Erect upon each airy spire
	    In concourse without end,
	Statues of saints over saints ascend
	Like multitudinous forks of fire.

	What motive was the master-builder's here?
	Why these synodic hierarchies given,
	Sublimely ranked in marble sessions clear,
	Except to signify the host of heaven.


 
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