A Cathedral

It rises by a frozen mere,With nave and transepts of the pinesThat towering mid the snows appearMajestic and sublime;While, with a myriad fair designsOf feathery-tufted tracery,Their tops adorn with silver rimeThe azure vault's immensity.

Rock-piled, the altar to the EastLies argent-spread; on either hand—Meek servers at the lonely feast—Surpliced and tall the birches stand,Like ghostly acolytes;And through ice-mailéd branches pass,Prismatic from celestial heights,The tints of mediæval glass.

Awed, as in no cathedral raisedBy human thought, alone, and still,I muse on one who dying praisedThe God of Being, here:On him who welcomed with a willThe gift of life, the boon of death,—The while he heard, deep-toned and near,The solemn forest's organ-breath.