FAILING LIGHT.

How pleasantly this light triangles on the wall

Through the invisible glass of the dawn

Recalling spring in time of fall

In the sunlit painting of the naked throne

Ripens the life betwixt citrus rinds

To the yellow crisp tartness of a lemon

Depresses when shredded through blinds

Winking in and out, a calculating demon

Unsettling it can be through a filthy pane

Blotched and scarred beyond recognition

It pales the rooms of the hermit insane

And those of the plotters of sedition

How gloomily that stained glass stains

The purity of these heavenly rays

Brooding only melancholy pains

In the pilgrim's sighs and the donkey's brays

Cracked glass by the devil's claw

Tears shadows where light ought to be

Awakening one's most horrendous flaw

And forcing good nature to flee.