Dusk Testimony

O not farewell, mistress of night and day Do not be coy and go away I love it at the sunset hour, I love you more I languish in the evening's power When dusk gathers her garment from the floor And runs naked through the door The room hangs with jasmine perfume, the power Of my favorite night time flower And memories from the edge of dawn's despair Are gossamer in cupboards bare. What should I have kept in this cupboard though For all I have is pain here below Jealousy like rats have gnawed board and bread And many against me vermin bred Resent that poisons have no room in my head I can only think of God going to bed Not bitter lies, nor spiteful things done and said I have of scrawny minds so little dread. Nor will I stoop to accomodate trifling characters Trying to impress me as populist actors. God loves men who abandoned him cross tettered Nor ignorance that love has fettered And I have loved the simple engarbed a subtle way I have been the target of decay And yet none have I denied the right to a better day But could not succumb to the dismay That cornered my innocense with empty display Bleaching the night to look like day. Rats and bats network the darkening day's edge, O I can purge a space for hope, do not go!