Len Webster's 'The Vale Of Release And Reflection' Poem by Len Webster

Is this really true,
'tis better to have lost
than never to have loved at all?

Is this really true,
that having once seen
the wonderful light

of another's life,
of another's world,
of another's body,

that one should give up
one's self
at the final release?

Can this be done,
do the voices once heard
die when dream

passes into nightmare
and awakens reality -
that awareness of death

and never-changing night
which beckons us forward
toward inevitable destruction?

You ask the Rector
for his distinguished advice
and smile at the answer.

Smiling at the Rector,
you beg the Priest's forgiveness,
nod condescendingly
when next you meet her
in the street.

But in your heart a bitter deceit
remains, frozen and deadly,
turning all you believed
into clay and to stone


(From 'Behind the Painted Veil', Outposts Publications, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,1972)