Then I behold the mediaeval marketplace hunched against the building, burying the foundations, the life of man growing rank and weedlike around it.

Then I see the bishop coming from the door with his impressive train.

But a crusade may go by on the way to the Holy Land.

A crusade may come home battered and in rags.

I get the sense of life, as of a rapid in a river flowing round a great rock." The cathedral stands for the age-long meditation of the ascetics in the midst of battling tribes.