Page:The Unconquered Air, Coates, 1912.djvu/117

 A CATHEDRAL

It rises by a frozen mere,

With nave and transepts of the pines

That towering mid the snows appear

Majestic and sublime;

While, with a myriad fair designs

Of feathery-tufted tracery,

Their tops adorn with silver rime

The azure vault's immensity.

Rock-piled, the altar to the East

Lies 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 raised

By human thought, alone, and still,

I muse on one who dying praised

The God of Being, here: 101