In the cool eve she came cared for and calm
Met the earth and lay among the lilies
Near a stream, loved near the living
Living trees, where birds sing their twilight songs
Far from grave walls or grief’s words
Far from the bell tolls on furthest bourn
The world there absorbed her secret wish
In deepest silence nigh the dearth of souls
Whose spirits strayed in hopeless streams
As they who crying crossed their hearts
And turned away their weary tears
So bore she the world bared from the womb
A dark angel of grief too grown to grasp
By a mortal hand now moored in lonely hearth
The burden felt carried to the furthest bourn—
To where the raven seraph waits in solemn watch
A divine guardian from direst loving God
To tend the lilied ground and take upon our grief
Our shroud of sorrow shared with absent sound.
©2026 R.A.R. Knight
Author’s Note:
An ekphrastic alliterative poem inspired by the painting often titled Angel of Sadness or Angel in a Cemetery by Polish artist Wilhelm Kotarbinski (1848-1941).
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