Wakening in the night, the pain that slumber
Strikes with her mace of silence dead and dumb
Loomed over me and, formless, said, “I come!
Bringing illusions lost beyond all number.
Rigid you lie, yet for a little cumber
This flaming world, where some die proudly, some
Glitter like granite, or dream millenium.”
It left me toiled in mountainous clouds of umber.
I lay sustaining all the old emotion,
Numbed as beneath the blows of iron cars.
Then slowly, slowly some supreme devotion
Crept down, and drew me out of ageless wars,
Like a dear voice heard over darkened ocean
When all dim heaven is trembling into stars.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on November 1, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
