Like Multitudinous Forks of Fire

Milan Cathedral
by Herman Melville

Through light green haze, a rolling sea
Over gardens where redundance flows,
The fat old plain of Lombardy,
The White Cathedral shows.

Of Art the miracles
Its tribes of pinnacles
Gleam like to ice-peaks snowed ; and higher,
Erect upon each airy spire
In concourse without end,
Statues of saints over saints ascend
Like multitudinous forks of fire.

What motive was the master-builder’s here?
Why these synodic hierarchies given,
Sublimely ranked in marble sessions clear,
Except to signify the host of heaven.