By Grace Alone
Quick-fingered Night comes eager, snuffing out a tiny flame
Flick’ring in the wind of shame,
Smothered with a single stroke;
Beside the Fire, a candle-gleam is naught but tears and smoke.
One task! And nothing I could give has stayed the hand of death
Or saved free heart and breath.
I can hear the Fire sing
And my little strength is melted in surrender to the Ring.
Here at the end I come to die, devoured and undone,
Lord of all and lord of none,
As my soul to wick-ash curls
And trembles in the darkness of the Night that is the world’s.
How swift the fateful seconds from beginning to the end!
How easily they spend!
As from day to Night I fall,
And in one breath of burning air lay waste the hopes of all.