called most frequently for expression. Because each day was so great a tax, however welcome, on mind and body, he sometimes longed for sleep:
O haven without wave or tide!
Silence, in which all songs have died!
Holy book, where hearts are still!
And home at length under the hill!
O mother quiet, breasts of peace,
Where love itself would faint and cease!
O infinite deep I never knew,
I would come back, come back to you,
Find you, as a pool unstirred,
Kneel down by you, and never a word,
Lay my head, and nothing said,
In your hands, ungarlanded;
And a long watch you would keep;
And I should sleep, and I should sleep!
So, again and again his thoughts in his poetry turn towards death, only in appearance the deepest sleep of all. But then, again, since nothing in life could satisfy such a hunger and aspiration for life, beyond mood and change he longed for a peace "where sense is with knowing one": and, beyond even this bodiless communion, for the peace that passes understanding:
Lost into God, as lights in light, we fly,
Grown one with will.
