The archbishop is away. The church is gray.

He has left his robes folded in camphor

And, dressed in black, he walks

Among fireflies.

The bony buttresses, the bony spires

Arranged under the stony clouds

Stand in a fixed light.

The bishop rests.

He is away. The church is gray.

This is his holiday.

The sexton moves with a sexton’s stare

In the air.

A dithery gold falls everywhere.

It wets the pigeons,

It goes and the birds go,

Turn dry,

Birds that never fly

Except when the bishop passes by,

Globed in today and tomorrow,

Dressed in his colored robes.