The dark is dear unto me—its breath is still, wide,
A hush where the phantoms do glide.
There dwell the beasts, in caverned hush they keep,
Yet the shadows cradle me, and lull to sleep.
They veil the grotesque, veil what eyes might dread,
And draw a mourning curtain round my head.
O blessed gloom, thou kind and gentle friend,
That asks no truth, no broken soul to mend.
Yet see! The light with lances comes to strip—
It lays me bare with every golden whip.
No sin, no sorrow dares to hide its face
When morning’s blade unseams my secret place.
The sun, austere, doth cast my form in stone,
And shows me parts I thought were not my own.
A mirror cruel, this radiant blaze I flee,
For what it shows—I scarce believe is me.
Though light may warm, and verdant fields restore,
It floods the room where I kept shut the door.
And truth, though fine, may pierce with cruel delight—
So let me rest, unseen, beneath the night.
