Cosmos

Onward beneath the night-bedark'nèd vault
Of scarcity of stars I see aloft,
I, weary, cold, alone, my-homeward wend,
And, still to attain mine end,
Perceive the incision of the acute wind's breath;
It is the chill of death,
And yet caresses me, cool, tender, soft,
But I force forth my way, who may not halt.

Yea, force, till I have planted firm my feet
The thither side my threshold; I look there
Far past the stars; to the last thing in space
My mind doth freely race
That cowers at this fell infinitude
Of nothing, what this nude
Abyss, cosmotic, emptiness, nor air,
'Twixt me and infinite naught a vacuum fleet.

Nothing 'twixt me and nothingness I find,
But here I shudder as I trudge along;
I, lone, apart, and weary, must escape
This demon void of shape,
I must, I shall, away from this, and now,
And none can tell me how
I can escape the horror and the wrong,
Nor yet the vast recesses of my mind.

(Monday, 15th March, 2010.)