MIDNIGHT SERVICE

Posted by Admin on 1 June 2008, 12:00 am

The lych-gate glistens, moonlit, in the rime,
a midnight service runs its formal course;
I brood – the barren years, the squandered time,
the self-indulgence, breed, too late, remorse.

I listen there to carols from within,
outsider, lone, to whom the sound relays
fresh revelations of omission’s sin –
new knowledge of a life misused conveys.

Nocturnal voices, carolling their praise,
from mediaeval nave reproaches bring;
explicit, hallowed, tender, every phrase –
my heart, too full, must break to hear them sing.

T. C. Hudson