E vietato in Otranto
calpestare l’erba
but over the cathedral floor,
from the great west door,
feet trample the Serpent,
limbs of the Tree of Life,
of Adam, Eve and mythic beasts,
the zodiac and its calendar.
Scions flower in the aisles,
Satan lies near the devil’s door.
worshippers whose faith,
whose patience pieced this mosaic up
now tread Eve’s broken visage.
A writer in the Age of Reason,
scribbling at Strawberry Hill,
stuck for a selling title,
took a blind stab at a map
to name his Gothic tale.
Today the castle Horace Walpole
did not know was there is shut
(but just for lunch). Had he
stood cathedralled in this city,
looking at the crystal sea
and the mist-hung shore beyond
whence lonely boats of refugees
creep across in leaky boats,
that terrible Iron Hand,
which haunted his usurper in
a century when the marvellous tree
inched across the cathedral floor,
might nowadays disturb us more.
©Terry Hodgson2020
Comments