The Child Dying

Unfriendly friendly universe, I pack your stars into my purse, And bid you so farewell. That I can leave you, quite go out, Go out, go out beyond all doubt, My father says, is the miracle. You are so great, and I so small: I am nothing, you are all: Being nothing, I can take this way. Oh I need neither rise nor fall, For when I do not move at all I shall be out of all your day. It's said some memory will remain In the other place, grass in the rain, Light on the land, sun on the sea, A flitting grace, a phantom face, But the world is out. There is not place Where it and its ghost can ever be. Father, father, I dread this air Blown from the far side of despair The cold cold corner. What house, what hold, What hand is there? I look and see Nothing-filled eternity, And the great round world grows weak and old. Hold my hand, oh hold it fast- I am changing! - until at last My hand in yours no more will change, Though yours change on. You here, I there, So hand in hand, twin-leafed despair - I did not know death was so strange.