The Pope and the Beggar

I saw a soul beside the clay it wore,
When reign'd that clay the Hierarch-Sire of Rome;
A hundred priests stood ranged the bier before,
Within St. Peter's dome.

And all was incense, solemn dirge, and prayer,
And still the soul stood sullen by the clay:
"O soul, why to thy heavenlier native air
Dost thou not soar away?"

And the soul answer'd, with a ghastly frown,
"In what life loved, death finds its weal or woe;
Slave to the clay's Desires, they drag me down
To the clay's rot below!"

It spoke, and where Rome's purple ones reposed,
They lower'd the corpse; and downwards from the sun
Both soul and body sunk--and darkness closed
Over that twofold one!

Without the church, unburied on the ground,
There lay, in rags, a beggar newly dead;
Above the dust no holy priest was found,
No pious prayer was said!

But round the corpse unnumber'd lovely things,
Hovering unseen by the proud passers by,
Form'd, upward, upward, upward, with bright wings,
A ladder to the sky!

"And what are ye, O beautiful?" "We are,"
Answer'd the choral cherubim, "His Deeds!"
Then his soul, sparkling sudden as a star,
Flash'd from its mortal weeds,

And, lightly passing, tier on tier, along
The gradual pinions, vanish'd like a smile!
Just then, swept by the solemn-visaged throng
From the Apostle's pile.

"Knew ye this beggar?" "Knew! a wretch, who died
Under the curse of our good Pope, now gone!"
"Loved ye that Pope?" "He was our Church's pride,
And Rome's most holy son!"

Then did I muse: such are men's judgments; blind
In scorn or love! In what unguess'd-of things,
Desires or Deeds--do rags and purple find
The fetters or the wings!