Edgar Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967). Counter-Attack and Other Poems. 1918.

30. Invocation

COME down from heaven to meet me when my breath

Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling death

I stumble toward escape, to find the door

Opening on morn where I may breathe once more

Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim

With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim

Of night’s horizon flows in lakes of fire,

Come down from heaven’s bright hill, my song’s desire.

Belov’d and faithful, teach my soul to wake

In glades deep-ranked with flowers that gleam and shake

And flock your paths with wonder. In your gaze

Show me the vanquished vigil of my days.

Mute in that golden silence hung with green,

Come down from heaven and bring me in your eyes

Remembrance of all beauty that has been,

And stillness from the pools of Paradise.