AZRAEL

Death came with night's falling

Upon a silver moonray struck

Through a thicket of darkening clouds

Where yonder I beheld some great storm

And upon that white ladder there lowered

To the waves of the sea

Like a raven's feather mislayed by winds,

That by which all destinies are eclipsed,

The hours of all men preordained—

Azrael, winged with one hundred eyes

That spread to darkening

Black as the measure of all human sin

By which the nightmares of children are kindled.

I saw him this last night, this final hour

Upon the vast and stormy sea

Where all souls culminate before their reckoning,

Taken upon that silver light to climb

Beside the Black Angel

Toward the gates of death.

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