For Mary Helen

2/18/02

Beloved Soul Departing

O sovereign of my soul the dreadful fight

Is ended now, all grief She will dismiss,

All sorrow dies in us for in Her light

Pain is not and all is conscious bliss.

Thy dimming eyes that held the light of seers,

Thy lips that spoke but rarely yet with ease

In measured words from immemorial spheres

Are silenced in His deep eternal peace.

Friend, sacrificant, companion, wife

Who cast on all thy wide and luminous gaze

A last long look on all the joy of life,

Now sweetly sleep beyond our troubled days.