Acceptance

    When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud

    And goes down burning into the gulf below,

    No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud

    At what has happened.  Birds, at least, must know

    It is the change to darkness in the sky.

    Murmuring something quiet in her breast,

    One bird begins to close a faded eye;

    Or overtaken too far from his nest,

    Hurrying low above the grove, some waif

    Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.

    At most he thinks or twitters softly, "Safe!

    Now let the night be dark for all of me.

    Let the night be too dark for me to see

    Into the future. Let what will be, be."