Night Song

 Lay your sleep-caught head, my love,
 On this arm that let you down.
 Time, the flush of heat, these may
 Burn off what makes fair each lone
 Care-filled child, and the grave prove
 Him more weak with each fast-flung year.
 But in my arms till break of day
 Let him who breathes here all night lie,
 Death-bound, sin-trapped, but to me
 In each part and in whole most fair.

 Soul and flesh, these have no bounds:
 To those who love, as they lie on
 Love's free-to-all and thick-spelled slope
 And swoon in ways that all men swoon,
 Grave, to them, the sight She sends:
 To heed the world's law not, and feel
 As one, in world-wide love and hope;
 While not seen is the sight that wakes
 Hard joy, in fields of ice and rocks,
 In men that lone and stern there dwell.

 To hold faith, or to know it's held--
 In the night those fled, like sound
 That rolls off of a sharp-struck bell.
 And mad men of the mad-run crowd
 Once more their old well-learned tale told:
 Each last small coin of the cost,
 All the long-feared cards now tell,
 Shall be paid, but from this night
 Not a hushed word, not a thought,
 Not a kiss nor look be lost.

 Night dies, and fair sights with it die:
 Let the winds of dawn that blow
 Soft all round your dream-caught head
 Such a sweet, sweet new day show
 As beat-wracked heart may bless, and eye,
 The death-bound world be all you crave;
 Let dry noon-tide see you fed
 By the powers, will they or no;
 Nights of harm still let you go
 Watched by all the loves men love.

                                -- W. H. A.
                                   (done by El Frem)

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