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.