Aria: All These Dyings; thoughts of Marianne Moore from In Distrust of Merits, 1942

All the world is an orphans home

Can there never be peace

Without bitter sorrow?

Without plaintive cries from the dying,

The cries for help that never come?

Oh still and quiet form upon the

Ageless dust,

I cannot look upon thy face and yet

I must!

If all these great dyings,

The endless agonies and

Bleeding wounds and

Aching hearts can

Teach us how to live in peace

Then all these dyings,

All these sorrows were

Not in vain.