But in vain. "The Golden
Legend" tells us how Lucifer and the Powers of the Air stormed about the
spire, and how he cried,--
"Hasten! hasten!
O ye spirits!
From its station drag the ponderous
Cross of iron that to mock us
Is uplifted high in air!"
and how the voices replied,--
"Oh, we cannot!
For around it
All the Saints and Guardian Angels
Throng in legions to protect it;
They defeat us everywhere!"
At one point, however, the evil spirits were successful; the colossal
statue of the Virgin, which crowned the dizzy summit, and was familiar
with the secrets of the upper air, and which, like its dread Enemy,
"above the rest,
In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower,"--
after having for fifty years borne the insults of these airy powers,
till it had lost all its original brightness, and its face
"Deep scars of thunder had intrenched,"--
was taken down, and the present cross put in its place. And there it
stands to this day, high up in the silence of midair, where the voices
of the city below are rendered small and thin by the distance,--four
hundred and seventy-four feet above the heads of the populace, who, in
their littleness, crawl about and traffic at its base.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272