(I think one of the saddest things that can happen to anybody is to watch a daughter die. Whilst I think this poem is a particularly bad one, I just had to try and get down that fleeting second when one moment there is a person and life (which we understand;) and the next moment the soul has gone and there is something very different, something difficult to comprehend - just a body. For the soul has fled. And I swear that you can almost see it break free, falling over itself in it's hurry to reach some other place - some place about which we know not one jot.)
ROSE GALLERY, BROMPTON HOSPITAL
In a quiet room,
Her mother and I at the bed,
She fought and fought for life,
And lost; and was dead.Time stopped,
Her soul flew out of the window,
Free, freed from strife,
Flesh transfigured.Tears welled,
The distance grew sickeningly wider,
Ours, ours was the grief,
For her soul had fled.Goodbye!
Your memory stays with us ever,
Though the wind, like the Spectre's knife,
Carries you over the river.
