Meeting-House Hill

I must be mad, or very tired,When the curve of a blue bay beyond a railroad trackIs shrill and sweet to me like the sudden springing of a tune,And the sight of a white church above thin trees in a city squareAmazes my eyes as though it were the Parthenon.Clear, reticent, superbly final,With the pillars of its portico refined to a cautious elegance,It dominates the weak trees,And the shot of its spireIs cool, and candid,Rising into an unresisting sky.Strange meeting-housePausing a moment upon a squalid hill-top.I watch the spire sweeping the sky,I am dizzy with the movement of the sky,I might be watching a mastWith its royals set fullStraining before a two-reef breeze.I might be sighting a tea-clipper,Tacking into the blue bay,Just back from CantonWith her hold full of green and blue porcelain,And a Chinese coolie leaning over the railGazing at the white spireWith dull, sea-spent eyes.