15 - the night‑light

THE NIGHT‑LIGHT

Nurse, I known now
        That love is vain.
                When I was small
                        You used to sing
And soothe my brow
        Till calm lost pain.
                That song recall
                        And to me bring.

I wish to feel
        Again that child
                That you made sleep
                        Singing so low,
So low that real
        Things were beguiled
                To make me weep
                        At seeing them go.

Nurse, by my bed
        Sing me again
                That song. I love
                        Hoping for’t now.
My heart has bled
        Till joy seems pain.
                Sing softly above
                        My caressed brow.

O regions lost
        In dreams and sleep!
                O fairy tales
                        You did not tell,
But that were tossed
        Out of the deep
                Of your song's waves
                        And surge and spell!

Sing as if you
        Were listening.
                Sing as if I
                        Had no more world
Than all night through
        Hearing you sing,
                While my breath sly
                        On my breast curled.

Why did I live
        Beyond those hours
                When you sung songs
                        Perhaps of queens
My dream believes,
        Perhaps of flowers,
                Whose lost scent throngs
                        Through my sense‑screens?

Why did I lose
        What I had not
                But was your voice,
                        My heart and night?
Why did I choose
        Life, love and thought,
                With a wrong choice
                        And a false right?

Lullaby, nurse,
        Again for me.
                Sing 'till I find
                        My heart less lone,
And life, life's hearse,
        Leaving dreams free,
                Shrink undefined
                        Into the Unknown.

You are no more
        My nurse that sings,
                My childhood een
                        Made me again.
No: you are the hour
        Of sleep, that brings
                That scene no‑scene,
                        That pain no‑pain;

Hallowed and dim,
        Motherly night,
                Wherein my soul
                        Is haunted past
The hollow rim
        Of my delight
                And the low dole
                        Of pain and haste;

Merged in the dark,
        Sunk past the bed
                Into a peace
                        Of being nought,
Shadowy bark
        Abandoned,
                Abstract release
                        From self and thought.


7-9-1916