Iter Supremum

Oh , what a night for a soul to go!
The wind a hawk, and the fields in snow;
No screening cover of leaves in the wood,
Nor a star abroad the way to show.

Do they part in peace,—soul with its clay?
Tenant and landlord, what do they say?
Was it sigh of sorrow or of release
I heard just now as the face turned gray?

What if, aghast on the shoreless main
Of Eternity, it sought again
The shelter and rest of the isle of Time,
And knocked at the door of its house of pain!

On the tavern hearth the embers glow,
The laugh is deep, and the flagons low;
But without, the wind and the trackless sky,
And night at the gates where a soul would go.