 | Western windows and other poems |  |
224
IN OCTOBER.
A flush'd cathedral, grand with loneliness,Gloomy with light and bright with shadow, seems
Thy catholic air, October. Holiest gleams
Alight like angels in each dim recess
Through the stain'd oriels of the east and west;
Thy floors float radiant with flutterings
Of moving shadows, ghosts of glorious wings;
Some organ's soul arises in the breast
Of him who walks thy aisles in revery bound:
The stops of silence tremble into sound.
Lo, Nature brings her dead for burial rite!
Upon thy solemn altars dress'd for Death
She lays her beautiful; the mother's brow
Is bow'd, while for her darling ones she grieves
And o'er their burial breathes her tenderest breath
As o'er their baptism in the April light;
And Autumn, gorgeous preacher, murmurs now
Sermons of dying flowers and falling leaves.
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