Sombre Sonnet + 

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. + 