Prelude for Darkness

Virgil Geddes

The night is hanging, inviolate,
On the last hour
Of suspended day.
The night will be heavy, inanimate;
And I lose myself
In contemplation
Of turbulent tomorrows.
Yet the night is incensed
With the possibility
Of still more strange days,
Many shadowed hours.
And I say to myself:
O my soul, be not self-succumbed;
Be strategic, and mingle with the night,
As insistent monotones of mist
Push down and mingle
With the street-beat of the rain.

Great finalities of pain
Are made of just such things;
While shapeless moods are moving
Slowly across dark sky.