A Canticle for Wakeman

A few short lines informed us you were dead,

That at the last you’d spent your destiny

The battle, so one-sided at your bed

With no relief for faded dignity.

 

But no false platitudes to bear, thank God,

No long recriminations for past deeds,

Not one to care, not one familiar head

To ease the passing spirit of its needs.

 

For some is death the only guarantee

That hell’s short tenure may be set aside,

That misery, and want and charity

May be consigned to someone else’s pride.

 

When, long rejected by the ones we love

We face our insecurities alone,

What moral should we draw upon for those

Who, faultless, judge for what we should atone?

 

I feel at one with you, for in the deed

I too have failed too often for success,

The same bleak planet I have known and grieved

Took you along a lifetime of distress;

 

And found you grim, unwilling to accept

That laurels should pay some one other’s fee,

When you had bled your way from debt to debt

And paid full price for wounds they wouldn’t see.

 

So rest your head, I should have said it yet,

That someone cared, and why, and so much more,

When you had need, and I had no regret…

But then, I should have said it all before.

 

David Lewis Paget