To One Heaven Sent Poem by Granville Holt

I sat by her bedside, she was silent
In repose and I wished to hear her voice
Yet there I paused as one on mission sent
To find some way to speak soft words of choice,
I feared my lot would fail her on this day,
This day among the last she had to breathe
Before that moment we all pass away
And this flesh and blood we at last unsheathe,
I whispered Tuckerman's sonnet of sod:

(No more thy meaning seek, thine anguish plead;
But, leaving straining thought, and stammering word,
Across the barren azure pass to God;
Shooting the void in silence, like a bird, —
A bird that shuts his wings for better speed!)