Golden light revealed it all—
The coffin draped in burnished pall,
With grief laid out in bas-relief,
Undulating disbelief;
Reverence numbed to vacant stares,
Immutable on frozen chairs;
Where are you wind? So deathly still!
Vivify this breathless chill!
Shake the pine! Prick the flow!
With needle, bloodless, on the snow!
Barren tremor, faint conceit,
Lamentations bittersweet—
Reflect full glare and so ordain
My captive stare through feathered pane!
Contorted chains of sweet liaison
Snap and fall into oblivion—
Keening tears on burning pyre
Melt the core of heart's desire;
On swirling eddies flung afar
Divinity joins secular;
Where are you spirit? Why so vague?
Why this storm of mortal plague?
Still the pine! O, wind, abstain!
Haunting peace its calm regain!
Roundabout the chaos traced
Back to center, trembling, chaste—
While ghostly-shadowed residue
Dissipates to Love anew!