Pagan

Though I be salt spume on the wings of Chance,
Storm tossed from the cavernous void of Time,
A marionette in a gibbering dance
That the cold gods call while their glasses chime,
Though the night roll down when their feast is done,
I will cry no moan to the careless sky,
For these I have loved, the seas and the sun
And the silver stars; and so when I die

All I ask of God is a silent sleep,
For I know no gift in His shadow lands
Can be more rare than the earth has given.
Should He wake me there I shall mourn and weep
As I think of the touch of sundered hands
And the windless waste 'twixt earth and Heaven.

—R.F.F.

Evolution