Here, in the process of the night, The stars themselves a purer light Give out, than reaches those who gaze Enshrouded with the valley's haze. October, entering Heaven's fane, Assumes her lucent, annual reign: Then what a dark and dismal clod, Forsaken by the Sons of God, Seems this sad world, to those which march Across the high, illumined arch, And with their brightness draw me forth To scan the splendors of the North! I see the Dragon, as he toils With Ursa in his shining coils, And mark the Huntsman lift his shield, Confronting on the ancient field The Bull, while in a mystic row The jewels of his girdle glow Or, haply, I may ponder long On that remoter, sparkling throng, The orient sisterhood, around Whose chief our Galaxy is wound; Thus, half enwrapt in classic dreams, And brooding over Learning's gleams, I leave to gloom the under-land, And from my watch-tower, close at hand, Like him who led the favored race, I look on glory face to face! So, on the mountain-top, alone, I dwell, as one who holds a throne; Or prince, or peasant, him I count My peer, who stands upon a mount, Sees farther than the tribes below, And knows the joys they cannot know; And, though beyond the sound of speech They reign, my soul goes out to reach, Far on their noble heights elsewhere, My brother-monarchs of the air. THE CHIMNEY-CORNER FOR 1866. VI. THE CATHEDRAL. "I am going to build a cathedral one of these days," said I to my wife, as I sat looking at the slant line of light made by the afternoon sun on our picture of the Cathedral of Milan. "That picture is one of the most poetic things you have among your house ornaments," said Rudolph. "Its original is the world's chief beauty,--a tribute to religion such as Art never gave before and never can again,--as much before the Pantheon, as the Alps, with their virgin snows and glittering pinnacles, are above all temples made with hands. Say what you will, those Middle Ages that you call Dark had a glory of faith that never will be seen in our days of cotton-mills and Manchester prints. Where will you marshal such an army of saints as stands in yonder white-marble forest, visibly transfigured and glorified in that celestial Italian air? Saintship belonged to the mediaeval Church; the heroism of religion has died with it." "That's just like one of your assertions, Rudolph," said I. "You might as well say that Nature has never made any flowers since Linnaeus shut up his herbarium. We have no statues and pictures of modern saints, but saints themselves, thank God, have never been wanting. 'As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be--'" "But what about your cathedral?" said my wife.