Lurking around corners – on groggy

Gas lit nights, whispering death to this age of the machine.

See the tender white crosses-row-on-row

Oh! so-many windswept nights of swirling snow.

Creaking branches catch the whiff of Lady Fortune's

Pleasing freezing breeze, and pleased, I was, immeasurably.

More fool me! Old Lady Darkness – with her fondest acolytes: death and birth

And drear black night. I possess all the gross infirmities of mind

and soul and heart to leave me gasping as the false lucidity starts

On deep-black nights, when sentient beings' grief

Holds their tongues and clings to this merest tincture of belief.