The road is long; the way grows faint,
But with a song and no complaint,
I’ll walk it more at peace and ease
If you will shore me up, and please:
Your love for me is deep, I know,
Yet sing me to sleep and let me go—
A path unclear as nighttime draws
Me ever near its end, because
I’ve had full count of wealth and known
Such joys a fountain might be thrown
Beyond its rim in rushing streams,
So if grown dim, the way holds dreams
Enough to lead me happy hence,
And I’ll not plead in self-defense:
Though ever deep your love, I know,
Sing me to sleep and let me go—
Into the night that never ends,
Where dark is light, and waiting friends
And quiet rest and graceful peace
Draw every guest to sweet release
How-e’er the strain of verses went,
With this refrain as Testament
And Will: Deep is your love, I know;
Sing me to sleep and
Let me go—
Art-Colored Glasses 
Beautiful, Kathryn.
Thank you, dear John.
I love your refrain here.
I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that I was thinking of it in terms not only of death but of all of the losses that come along on the way towards it–that we have to come to terms with each as it happens and then let go gracefully. An odd sort of comfort and happiness, perhaps, but truly so for me all the same.
What your poem reminded me of, in part because you used a refrain, is the lines by Christina Rossetti:
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
Thank you for the Rossetti. She wrote a whole lot of lovely things I do find very comforting in their lyrical gentleness.
A poignant lullaby for grownups and life and its grains and losses….very apt for Steve in the last comment to ‘compare’ to Christina Rosetti’s poem.
As seriously fond of lullabies as I am, it’s no surprise that I should choose the form to soothe my sorrows over loss, I suppose, and remind me of the perpetual promise of some kind of morning to come.
Your poems resonate…
. . . and you remind me of that amazing phenomenon I’ve grown to love when it strikes, in music or in life: overtones. The harmonic convergence, if you will, of well-fitted musical frequencies–or like-minded persons. 🙂