When every force of hell drags with its hooks
And all the voices lie and shout and scream
That all is lost and all has died;
When knees buckle under the strain
And the motion of praying is not prayer at all,
Only the dull screams of something on fire;
When the words that we mouth are not words
And the hope that we clutch at is scarcely hope,
Just the frail refuge of the truly lost:
Hold me. Your arms are too vast for me to see,
Too gentle for me to feel; Hold me,
In your imperceptible arms, firm through all my wildest fears.
And when the earth has died and gone,
May I then be found somehow,
Impossibly safe in all that You Are.
Hold me.
The Consolations of Writing 