The darkness steals the forms of all the queens.

But oh, the palms of her two black hands are red!

—It is Death I fear so much, it is not the dead—

Not this gray book, but the red and bloody scenes.

The lamps are white like snowdrops in the grass;

The town is like a churchyard, all so still

And gray, now night is here: nor will

Another torn red sunset come to pass.

And so I sit and turn the book of gray,

Feeling the shadows like a blind man reading,

All fearful lest I find some next word bleeding.

—Nay, take my painted missal book away.