Darkness

A gentleman of wit and charm,
A kindly heart, a cleanly mind,
One who was quick with hand or purse
To lift the burden of his kind.
A brain well balanced and mature,
A soul that shrank from all things base,
So rode he forth that winter day,
Complete in every mortal grace.

And then - the blunder of a horse,
The crash upon the frozen clods,
And - Death?  Ah! no such dignity,
But Life, all twisted and at odds!
At odds in body and in soul,
Degraded to some brutish state,
A being loathsome and malign,
Debased, obscene, degenerate.

Pathology?  The case is clear,
The diagnosis is exact;
A bone depressed, a haemorrhage,
The pressure on a nervous tract.
Theology?  Ah, there's the rub!
Since brain and soul together fade,
Then when the brain is dead - enough!
Lord help us, for we need Thine aid!


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle