But He Has Gone, A

In The Dark Room Where I Began My Mother's Life Made Me A Man. Through All The Months Of Human Birth Her Beauty Fed My Common Earth. I Cannot See, Nor Breathe, Nor Stir, But Through The Death Of Some Of Her.

I Hold That When A Person Dies / His Soul Returns Again To Earth; / Arrayed In Some New Flesh Disguise / Another Mother Gives Him Birth / With Sturdier Limbs And Brighter Brain.

So Death Obscures Your Gentle Form, So Memory Strives To Make The Darkness Bright; And, In That Heap Of Rocks, Your Body Lies, Part Of The Island Till The Planet Ends, My Gentle Comrade, Beautiful And Wise, Part Of This Crag This Bitter Surge Offends, While I, Who Pass, A Little Obscure Thing, War With This Force, And Breathe, And Am Its King.

Lord, Give To Me Who Are Old And Rougher The Things That Little Children Suffer, And Let Keep Bright And Undefiled The Young Years Of The Little Child.

Life, A Beauty Chased By Tragic Laughter.