Night Prayer

Anguish and delight are now

Coiled in darkness on the bough,

And iron time deflowers spring,

Secretly, the secret thing.

Mind and body, as they must,

Invent a terminus to lust,

Preserving the despair they make. . . .

Pray the Lord my soul to take. . . .

When this incontinent despair

Turns sick with love in sunless air,

A firmer bed than bed of stone

Take up my cast of flesh and bone,

A sharper song than rue or willow

Weep me dead upon my pillow.

I who strangled life with sleep

Pray the Lord my soul to keep. . . .