Darkness

     A gentleman of wit and charm,
          A kindly heart, a cleanly mind,
     One who was quick with hand or purse,
          To lift the burden of his kind.
     A brain well balanced and mature,
          A soul that shrank from all things
            base,
     So rode he forth that winter day,
          Complete in every mortal grace.

     And then — the blunder of a horse,
          The crash upon the frozen clods,
     And — Death?   Ah! no such dignity,
          But Life, all twisted and at odds!
     At odds in body and in soul,
          Degraded to some brutish state,
     A being loathsome and malign,
          Debased, obscene, degenerate.

     Pathology?   The case is clear,
          The diagnosis is exact;
     A bone depressed, a haemorrhage,
          The pressure on a nervous tract.
     Theology?   Ah, there's the rub!
          Since brain and soul together fade,
     Then when the brain is dead — enough!
          Lord help us, for we need Thine aid!