Dialogue on the Threshold

Schwellendialog

31 January 2022

An epitaph

Son of man, tell me,
Hast thou at any time lain in thick darkness,
Gazing up into a lightless silence,
A dark void vacancy,
Like the woe of the sea
In the unvisited places of the ocean?
And nothing but thine own frail sentience 
To prove thee living?
Lost in this affliction of the spirit,
Did'st thou then call upon God 
Of his infinite mercy to reveal to thee
Proof of his presence -
His presence and love for thee, exquisite creature
    of his creation?
To show thee but some small devisal 
Of his infinite compassion and pity even
    though it were as fleeting
As the light of a falling star in a dewdrop?
Hast thou? O, if thou hast not,
Do it now; do it now; do it now!
Lest that night come which is sans sense,
    thought, tongue, stir, time, being,
And the moment is for ever denied thee,
Since thou art thyself as I am.
 
Walter de la Mare,  ‘Strangers and Pilgrims’ (1936)


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