Classic Poem

Dark temple!
I stand before
Your black-flung door,
Beggared by day,
Assailed by thieving hours all the way.

Here am I safe from noon's hostility
And the sun's buffeting,
Those brazen rods that bruised and blinded me:
I seek your sanctuary, night!
Through your wide-arching silences I bring
My broken silences of soul
To be made whole,
I bring my wounds of light.

Along your aisles I drop my dragging pride,
And toss my tattered words aside—
Garments I need no longer wear—
Behind me close dim gates:
O dome of all oblivion,
Where living pain and dead are one,
Pale tints within a paler prayer,
Wrapped in my nakedness I creep
Up to your altars of absolving sleep,
Where a great waking waits.

From the sky's shadowy tower sounds the moon,
Calling to dreams—
Swing clearer, silver bell, swing higher!—
A myriad music glows and gleams,
I hear the stars intone
In shining choir:
Now—soon—
Shall I wander those dim cloisters of my dream's desire;
And not alone.