THE ROSE-WINDOW

In there: their paws with soundless, 

lazy steps create in stillness a confusing stir; 

and then how suddenly on one of the cats

your glance moves to and fro,—and then aware,

compellingly in her great eyes she takes 

the glance, which, as by a maelstrom caught fast,

swims for a little while, and then-sinks,

and of itself has no more consciousness:

when these eyes, which are seemingly at rest, 

open, and, as with a roar, together close, 

drawing the gaze into the very blood—:

so out of darkness once in times long past 

the great Cathedral's glowing window-rose

thus seized a heart and drew it unto God.