The shining complement that crowned the story;
The golden link that made the meaning clear.

Oh, Dark Companion, journeying ever by us,
Oh, grim Perturber of our works and ways --
Oh, potent Dread, unseen, yet ever nigh us,
Disquieting all the tenor of our days --

Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose wide embraces
O'ertake remotest change of clime and skies --
Oh, Dark Companion, Death, whose grievous traces
Are scattered shreds of riven enterprise --

Thou, too, in this wise, when, our eyes unsealing,
The clearer day shall change our faith to sight,
Shalt show thyself, in that supreme revealing,
No Dark Companion, but a thing of light.

No ruthless wrecker of harmonious order;
No alien heart of discord and caprice;
A beckoning light upon the Blissful Border;
A kindred element of law and peace.

So, too, our strange unrest in this our dwelling,
The trembling that thou joinest with our mirth,
Are but thy magnet-communings compelling
Our spirits farther from the scope of earth.

So, doubtless, when beneath thy potence swerving,
'Tis that thou lead'st us by a path unknown,