Are you awake? Do you hear the rain?
How rushingly it strikes upon the ground,
And on the roof, and the wet window-panel
Sometimes I think it is a comfortable sound,
Making us feel how safe and snug we are:
Closing us off in this dark, away from the dark outside.
The rest of the world seems dim tonight, mysterious and far.
Oh, there is no world left Only darkness, darkness stretching wide
And full of the blind rain’s immeasurable fall!
How nothing must we seem unto this ancient thing!
How nothing unto the earth—and we so small!
Oh, wake, wake!—do you not feel my hands cling?
One day it will be raining as it rains tonight; the same wind blow—
Raining and blowing on this house wherein we lie: but you and I—
We shall not hear, we shall not ever know.
O love, I had forgot that we must die.
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The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around, with a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest on the bare thorn’s breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o’er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon’s dying light;
As a fen-fire’s beam on a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,
That shook in the wind of night.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved—
The wind made thy bosom chill—
The night did shed on thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.
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This was taken on a trip to Ottawa over the summer. Actually this breathtaking view of Canada’s parliament buildings in Ottawa was taken from across the river at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, QC. The outside of the museum is chock full of amazing pictures like this one. This is another entry in Carmi Levy’s Thematic Photographic: Travel. Here’s how it works.
