There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons −
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes −
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us −
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
After Dickinson’s reference to winter, she immediately continues with a religious reference to church, or the “Cathedral” mentioned. The “Cathedral” generally is a symbol of God and Christianity; however, these “oppress[ing] Cathedral Tunes” bring about the atmosphere of something as cold as the “Winter Afternoons”. 
 Here, it seems as if Dickinson is trying to express the heaviness of church bells on a cold afternoon when someone is mourning. The “Cathedral Tunes” that “oppress” the speaker, create the sense that the world is forcing something upon the individuals in the poem. Death, being an inevitable characteristic of nature, is in a sense “oppress[ing]” the people it affects. Dickinson’s atmosphere can be taken in as something of mourning and something in relation to the death of a loved one, being forced upon by nature as the dreadful church bells force reality onto the speaker. 

258