As it reached the chancel,
The light came in through
brighter and clearer colors,
through the blue of translucent
sapphires, through pale rubies,
brilliant yellow, and crystalline white.
The gloom was relieved
beyond the transepts near the altar.
Even in the centre of the cross
the sun pierced clearer glass,
less storied with figures,
and bordered with almost colorless panes
that admitted it freely.

At last, in the apse,
forming the top of the cross,
it poured in,
symbolical of the light
that flooded the world
from the top of the Tree
and the images were diaphanous,
just lightly covered
with flowing line and aerial tints,
to frame in a sheaf of colored sparks
the image of a Madonna,
less hieratic and barbaric than the others,
and a fairer Infant,
blessing the earth with uplifted hand.

Two paragraphs of J.K. Huysmans from ‘The Cathedral’ converted into a poem.