Loneliness

Now it is Loneliness who comes at night

instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed.

Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread

I watch her softly blowing out the light.

Motionless sitting, neither left or right

She turns, and weary, weary droops her head

She, too, is old; she, too, has fought the fight.

So, with the laurel she is garlanded.

Through the sad dark the slowly ebbing tide 

Breaks on a barren shore, unsatisfied

A strange wind flows...then silence. I am fain

To turn to Loneliness, to take her hand.

Cling to her, waiting, till the barren land

Fills with the dreadful monotone of rain.

Poem by Katherine Mansfield