DELIVERANCE

O Death, fair Death, sole comforter and sweet,

Nor Love nor Hope can give such gifts as thine.

Sleep hardly shows us round thy shadowy shrine

What roses hang, what music floats, what feet

Pass and what wings of angels. We repeat

Wild words or mild, disastrous or divine,

Blind prayer, blind imprecation, seeing no sign

Nor hearing aught of thee not faint and fleet

As words of men or snowflakes on the wind.

But if we chide thee, saying “Thou hast sinned, thou hast sinned,

Dark Death, to take so sweet a light away

As shone but late, though shadowed, in our skies,”

We hear thine answer — “Night has given what day

Denied him: darkness hath unsealed his eyes.”