Yet when the need was great I swore:
Death I have seen your face, you wore
my father’s face and I saw him
in the coffin and accused him
of death: I said
Dear Father, are you mad?
And he who stays awake longest
shall be deemed the wisest,
for good fortune’s as hard to bear as ill:
the blessings scatter like pollen in the August air:
and though we know that pain is to sapphire
as ruby to grief, that these wounds and tears
may lead to odes and test our disbelief,
still we cannot wish for more
sorrow than shall be our common lot,
whether we wish for it or not:
and now I am dying in the daylight
but recover at night
to die again in the morrow
