When you wake in your crib, <br />You, an inch of experience - <br />Vaulted about <br />With the wonder of darkness; <br />Wailing and striving <br />To reach from your feebleness <br />Something you feel <br />Will be good to and cherish you, <br />Something you know <br />And can rest upon blindly: <br />O, then a hand <br />(Your mother's, your mother's!) <br />By the fall of its fingers <br />All knowledge, all power to you, <br />Out of the dreary, <br />Discouraging strangenesses <br />Comes to and masters you, <br />Takes you, and lovingly <br />Woos you and soothes you <br />Back, as you cling to it, <br />Back to some comforting <br />Corner of sleep. <br /> <br />So you wake in your bed, <br />Having lived, having loved; <br />But the shadows are there, <br />And the world and its kingdoms <br />Incredibly faded; <br />And you group through the Terror <br />Above you and under <br />For the light, for the warmth, <br />The assurance of life; <br />But the blasts are ice-born, <br />And your heart is nigh burst <br />With the weight of the gloom <br />And the stress of your strangled <br />And desperate endeavour: <br />Sudden a hand - <br />Mother, O Mother! - <br />God at His best to you, <br />Out of the roaring, <br />Impossible silences, <br />Falls on and urges you, <br />Mightily, tenderly, <br />Forth, as you clutch at it, <br />Forth to the infinite <br />Peace of the Grave.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/when-you-wake-in-your-crib/
