I enter, and I see thee in the gloom     Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!     And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.     The air is filled with some unknown perfume; The congregation of the dead make room     For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;     Like rooks that haunt Ravenna’s groves of pine,     The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. From the confessionals I hear arise     Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,     And lamentations from the crypts below And then a voice celestial that begins     With the pathetic words, “Although your sins     As scarlet be,” and ends with “as the snow.”