Lost Among the Shadows

Lost among the shadows—
In a timeless crypt I dwell,
Perusing castle ruins,
A cathedral with no bell.

There is no call to worship,
No call to rise and sing,
No coaxing grace to light my face,
No offering to bring.

No Christ in heaven waiting,
No deeper hell to find,
Battered into solitude,
By twists of fate unkind.

No angels grouped in splendour,
No God in mounting haste,
Bereft in stone, a moonlit home,
A pallid, fallen waste.

No bright cooperation,
No teamwork as before,
But only blanket silence,
On a dreary, darksome shore.

No love to spark my bosom,
No company in Christ,
No gleeful din proclaiming Him,
And what He sacrificed.

The dank abode of devils,
Aye, that hate the fount of grace,
Scars upon my soul embossed,
And tears upon my face.

Blasted long into the past,
In epic blackness reaching vast,
The clamouring for heaven lost—
A hopeless wight in silence cast.

Into the grip of entropy,
Into her dark embrace,
Heaven lost, across the sea,
And hell to take its place.

The ruins harbour memories—
It’s unto them I talk,
Bereavement written in my limbs,
And sorrow in my walk.

Calamity abounding,
With our men in violence lost,
I bow my head in soft despair,
Again I count the cost.

For Christ in sooth was everything,
The reason for this space,
But He is fled, His worship dead,
And gone without a trace.

No lifting of the darkness,
No holiness to woo,
But cold dilapidation,
Neath a starry veil of blue.

ADL