DEATH is nothing at all .......
DEATH is nothing at all. I have
only slipped away into the next room.
I am I, and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way which
you always used. Put no difference
in your tone, wear no forced air
of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the
little jokes we enjoyed together.
Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was, let it be spoken without effect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just around the corner......
All is well......
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Harry Scott Holland |
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1847-1918
Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral |
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THE WHITE SWALLOW
~FOR EMMA ~
Close she flutters
Strangely close
And in my heart I know …
Light as breath
She skims away
Across the rippling surface
Of the lake,
Strands of silk
Invisible
She weaves and casts,
To tug and catch
My heart as now
She swoops again.
And I am leaden,
Earth-bound,
Cannot follow
This dancing calling
Sprite
O, Emma …. Emma … Emma …
Close I hold you
Yet cannot keep you
I watch your eyes, your lovely eyes
And see their deeps
Becoming clear
And freed of pain:
Opal clear
The silken strands are all spun now
I hold you still
And cannot breathe
For in my heart I know
That I can only watch
And let your spirit and your soul
Be gathered
By the White Swallow
And I am left behind.
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FOR AARON
High moon and frost-silver night conspire
To set him free; his spirit
Yearns, and wanders.
He does not need, nor want,
The secure dark cave. His bed
Is empty.
Let me be free, let me search;
Perhaps tonight he will find her,
And for a time, those two spirits
Will mesh again in perfect
Harmony.
O, those deep deep eyes
Which gaze so steadily, so longingly,
So lovingly.
So full of love,
And pain.
Why is it that the deepest love
Brings with it the deepest pain?
9th July 1993
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