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Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  John McCrae (1872–1918)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

The Night Cometh

John McCrae (1872–1918)

COMETH the night. The wind falls low,

The trees swing slowly to and fro:

Around the church the headstones grey

Cluster, like children stray’d away

But found again, and folded so.

No chiding look doth she bestow:

If she is glad, they cannot know;

If ill or well they spend their day,

Cometh the night.

Singing or sad, intent they go:

They do not see the shadows grow;

‘There yet is time,’ they lightly say,

‘Before our work aside we lay’;

Their task is but half-done, and lo!

Cometh the night.