I stood, one azure dusk, in old Auxerre
Before the grey Cathedral's towering height,
And in the Eastern darkness, very fair
I saw a little star that twinkled bright;
How small it looked beside the mighty pile,
Whose stone was rosy with the Western glow -
A little star - I pondered for a while,
And then the solemn truth began to know.
That tiny star was some enormous sphere,
The great cathedral was an atomy -
So often when grey trouble looms so near
That God shines in our minds but distantly, -
If we but thought, our grief would seem so small
That we would see that God's great love was all.
France, 1917.