The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE SEVENFOLD SACRAMENT In eddies of obsidian At my feet the river ran Between me and the poppy-prankt Isle, with tangled roots embanked, Where seven sister poplars stood Like the seven Spirits of God. Soft as silence in mine ear, The drone and rustle of the weir Told in bass the treble tale Of the embowered nightingale. Higher, on the patient river, Velvet lights without a quiver Echoed through their hushéd rimes The garden’s glow beneath the limes. Then the sombre village, crowned By the castellated ground Where, in cerements of sable, One square tower and one great gable Stood, the melancholy wraith Of a false and fallen faith. Over all, supine, enthralling, The young moon, her faint edge falling To the dead verge of her setting, Saintly swam, her silver fretting All the leaves with light. Afar 187