Through the night darkness, thick as throbbing pain,
Little sister, I come to you again,
Along the same aggrieving iron track
Borne strickenly, under the grey stars, back
To that long-watched and long-foreboding bed —
Where now you lie, dead —
With all your dark hair hushed about your head.
Two nights ago it was I left your side,
Where suffering had swept your veins so long.
Your hands were tossing and your eyes wide.
Harder than death that hurt is to forgive.
There, as I leant, you asked me, " Shall I live?"
And oh, I lied, lied!
Hoping to save you some last torture's wrong.
I lied and made you laugh with gentle jests,
Though oft your hands were wandering to your lips
Where the words broke, because the blind blood wrung
The brain, and left the unavailing tongue,
So sure at love's behests,
With each sweet-uttered syllable unstrung.
Starkly the grief of it now at me grips.
I left you — though with scarce a trembling hope
To fight the pity of the pale distress
That I beheld ravage your loveliness:
And now that pity never can depart!
But my premonished heart
Henceforth will cast a fateful horoscope
Over each starry faith at which I grope.
I left: then came the sudden sworded word.
Scarce was I wakened ere it ran me through.
Who voiced it to the vibrant night-wire — who?
Sending electric anguish to arrest
My fluttering prescient heart, that like a bird
Fell strangled in my breast? —
" Died suddenly," I heard. ... God seemed dead too.
O little sister — " little" still to me,
Though womanhood with all its ways was yours;
Though death in all his icy majesty
Has set you far beyond me, and immures
Your lips that gave to mine so lovingly
A last forgetless kiss —
Is there requital anywhere for this?
Forgive the moan. We live and love and die,
A moment tread earth, then the starry sky
Is pulled above us — an eternal pall.
Yet prooflessly we know that is not all!
So when I bend above your coffin there
My slain faith shall not fall
Into the dust with you, but rise more fair.
Wherefore the sacredness of this my grief
I give in part to such imperfect song:
That I may not life's cruel seeming wrong
Too much, and rend God, out of disbelief.
A little truth we know, but not enough
Faith's mystic flame to snuff.
For hope then, not despair, must we be strong.
Little sister, I come to you again,
Along the same aggrieving iron track
Borne strickenly, under the grey stars, back
To that long-watched and long-foreboding bed —
Where now you lie, dead —
With all your dark hair hushed about your head.
Two nights ago it was I left your side,
Where suffering had swept your veins so long.
Your hands were tossing and your eyes wide.
Harder than death that hurt is to forgive.
There, as I leant, you asked me, " Shall I live?"
And oh, I lied, lied!
Hoping to save you some last torture's wrong.
I lied and made you laugh with gentle jests,
Though oft your hands were wandering to your lips
Where the words broke, because the blind blood wrung
The brain, and left the unavailing tongue,
So sure at love's behests,
With each sweet-uttered syllable unstrung.
Starkly the grief of it now at me grips.
I left you — though with scarce a trembling hope
To fight the pity of the pale distress
That I beheld ravage your loveliness:
And now that pity never can depart!
But my premonished heart
Henceforth will cast a fateful horoscope
Over each starry faith at which I grope.
I left: then came the sudden sworded word.
Scarce was I wakened ere it ran me through.
Who voiced it to the vibrant night-wire — who?
Sending electric anguish to arrest
My fluttering prescient heart, that like a bird
Fell strangled in my breast? —
" Died suddenly," I heard. ... God seemed dead too.
O little sister — " little" still to me,
Though womanhood with all its ways was yours;
Though death in all his icy majesty
Has set you far beyond me, and immures
Your lips that gave to mine so lovingly
A last forgetless kiss —
Is there requital anywhere for this?
Forgive the moan. We live and love and die,
A moment tread earth, then the starry sky
Is pulled above us — an eternal pall.
Yet prooflessly we know that is not all!
So when I bend above your coffin there
My slain faith shall not fall
Into the dust with you, but rise more fair.
Wherefore the sacredness of this my grief
I give in part to such imperfect song:
That I may not life's cruel seeming wrong
Too much, and rend God, out of disbelief.
A little truth we know, but not enough
Faith's mystic flame to snuff.
For hope then, not despair, must we be strong.