‘Don’t be fooled’ I tell myself,
‘This is no fantasy’
As I gaze up at a Neo-Gothic façade
Of blood red stone,
Lavish with black lace tracery,
Parapets and gargoyles.
The roar of city life falls away beyond the door,
To a cloister-like quietude I fear to break
By ascending the labyrinthine stair,
Yet each step I take is slow out of wonder
For the nature of what surrounds me:
So organic, skeletal, intricate, and fictional,
It forces me to the edge of disbelief.
I ascend faster in fear that it should move.
There is the briefest second
When I brush reality
As the ecclesiastical echo of the reading room
Is soft with the hum of book-lined alcoves,
Of the warm lights sprouting from every wall,
But beneath the cavernous rib-vaulted ceiling
I am insignificant, I am transported.
I stare hard into marble faces
Daring them to blink,
Unable to conceive of another explanation
For this hollow enchanted place.
‘Don’t be fooled’ I tell myself,
‘This is no fantasy.’
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