Musing Poem: Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace

“Speak not of gloom to me

While sparrow sings,

The sun sends beams,

And breezes blow light and fair.”

“For all is well; I feel ‘tis so.

Besides, to speak of this disturbs my bliss

And casts doubt where I think I know.”

“So please, be gone, you morbid man

And take your woe away.

This idle talk of fancied doom

Is rot on such a day.”

I left, and came sometime hence

And found the sparrow – broken, torn,

Cold – against wood fence.

And dimly did I, through howling hail and blowing blast,

Perceive a figure crouching at horror’s door:

‘Twas she who bade me leave before.

While drawing near she gasped her last

As lightning flash consumed the flesh

And turned her bones to lime.

I wept and shuddered and cried aloud,

“Why will you not discern these times?”