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Following is a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that was quoted by Dallas Willard (author of The Spirit of the Disciplines) at the memorial service for my wife, Avis. [JSH, ed.] I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts into the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.
Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
[Dallas added here: God is not resigned; I am not resigned.] The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, —
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses.
Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
