Classic Poem

Dear life, be merciful and kind,
Lend me your hand, for I am blind,
Lend me your wit, for mine too soon
Inhabits with the spectral moon,
Prepare your still intelligence
To watch beside my ailing sense.

Life, I have made my pilgrimage
All as you bade, and, wage by wage,
Your service seemed but well to me.
Now gentle in persuasion be,
When after you I fall and bleed,
And hear not where your footfalls lead.

My song no tardy messenger
Has been of any word that there
Dwelt from your charge for witnessing,
Let me not be an outcast thing,
Dear life, this weather, from your fold,
With a great heart untimely old.

In faith to you have laboured long
My blood, my purposes, my song.
In faith to you my hope is dumb,
To this poor waste of darkness come.
O life, forsake me not, who lie
Broken upon your Calvary.