Sombre Sonnet

David Park Barnitz

I love all sombre and autumnal things,
Regal and mournful and funereal,
Things strange and curious and majestical,
Whereto a solemn savor of death clings:

Coerulian serpents mark'd with azure rings ;
Awful cathedrals where rich shadows fall ;
Hoarse symphonies sepulchral as a pall ;
Mad crimes adorn'd with bestial blazonings.

Therefore I love thee more than aught that dies,
Within whose subtile beauty slumbereth
The twain solemnity of life and death;

Therefore I sit beside thee far from day
And look into thy holy eyes alway,
Thy desolate eyes, thine unillumin'd eyes.