The Cathedral

Yet Another Sonnet

This is the third installment in this four-sonnet series.

Through dingy, damp, dim, age-old, ageless streets

The faithful foll'wers of the Found arise.

This Dickensish day a little parish meets

Where cathedralic spires split the skies.


Inside the doors, the beams of sun—unseen

Outside—make rose-blood seas of petalled panes.

The psalms and prayers draw meaning from the mean,

And silence sanctifies the sighing of the rains. 


They kneel; the chanting—fair, unbearable—

The censer sways; the tapers, stars in image,

The earth itself a wheeling thurible, 

Of pungent prayer Christ swings in priestly homage.


Mysteries, a thousand threes and sevens—

Your Church the narthex of the seven heavens.