Charles E. Butler

“I have lain awake in the darkness many nightsThinking of poems, going to sleep on poems,Finally,with the darkness closing onThe bright remembered words. I have thought of the darknessClosing on the world, the words of the poems forgotten,All the great beautiful words of the poemsFading from the mind of the world, let goSlowly, unknowingly, as from the mindOf one diseased the light of man's endeavorFades to the idiot darkness and is lost.Part of the darkness, I have lain awakeWatching the poems of the world fade out like stars.”