(cont.d)And when they reach the Baron’s alleyway,
they’re forced to turn the casket very slowly;
closer than ever are those piercing cries
bursting within an endless sea of sighs:
“Oh great misfortune; oh mother’s dearest love.”
The cross now almost grazes the high windows
and those who weep there as they lean outside;
the crowd pours out into the narrow street
and swells like the sea surging in black waves.
Then, when they reach the square, you hear
another cry, more strangled, longer still:
“Father’s love, father’s dearest love,”
so that now the red-and-white, puffed faces
of priests and altar boys begin to lose
their color, as their song resounds more clear,
and louder than the sudden crack of thunder.
You’re frightened by the glasspanes of the balconies
that flash and quiver as they close and open;
that even stones are weeping in the street
in oneness with all things, and then the sudden
gasp of armless, legless men anxious to flee
who roll and tumble mixed like skeins of pitch