Dreary the morning that crawls from beneath the purple autumn shadows and ruthless the sun that follows on the ragged heels of all the long sleepless nights of passion and longing.

Could God be less a fiend or a more thorough ogre than to grant a glimpse of a life only to snatch it so quickly away? Could his mercies be so strained that he would endow love only to replace it with an abyss?

Is there no hope for those among us, hopeless? No courage the trembling coward, no healing the lame or sight the blind? Is there left only the tolling of a bell for the leper and no sweet aloes or soothing balm for the outcast unclean with blistered and weeping flesh?

It rained today.