AND if to-night my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good
oblivion,
and in the
morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and
new-created.
And if,
as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out,
and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and
words
then I shall
know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon’s
in shadow.
And if,
as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems
that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep
shadows folding, folding
around my soul and spirit, around my
lips
so sweet, like
a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the
nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of
the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving
still
with the dark
earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse and
renewal.
And if, in the changing phases of man’s life
I fall in sickness and in
misery
my wrists
seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a
life:
and still,
among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches
of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the
withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought
forth before, new blossoms
of me.
then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown
God,
he is breaking
me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new
man.