The Golden Body's Pall

Delight has fled the office of my soul

And I am left a pauper counting dreams

Once highly prized but now a worthless dole,

My credit gone and all the world it seems

Is richer far than I who found the goal

Of love and life and now have lost the key,

For death from life exacts a heavy toll,

The vaults are bare and sorrow beggars me.

In this accounting of my grief-torn days

A penury of hope my paltry share,

Unless the fallen spirit humbly raise

Eyes to a light through darkness' thoroughfare.

This bankrupt world of avarice deny

And life's familiar offerings grow stale,

If I could trade inheritance of "I'

For selflessness the mission would not fail.

If I could fill the cup with gratitude

In morning's waking song and evening's hymn

Embrace the whole of life, no particle exclude,

A ray would dawn no dark could hope to dim.

A sorrow-laden commerce stifles us,

A note we hold that one day death shall call

Unless some long-awaited numinous

Descent remove the golden body's pall.