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Broken she lies and pale, who loved you so?

THE WIND

Roses must live and love, and winds must blow.

Philip Bourke Marston (The Rose and the Wind).

WHAT OF THE DARKNESS?

What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?

Are there great calms, and find ye silence there?

Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow

With some strange peace our faces never know,

With some great faith our faces never dare:

Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there?

Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie?

Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry?

Is it a Hand to still the pulse’s leap?

Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep?

Day shows us not such comfort anywhere:

Dwells it in Darkness? Do ye find it there?

Out of the Day’s deceiving light we call,

Day, that shows man so great and God so small.

That hides the stars and magnifies the grass;

O is the Darkness too a lying glass

Or, undistracted, do ye find truth there?

What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?

R. le Gallienne.

These lines were written of the blind, but become even more beautiful and true if applied to a different subject, the dead.