Poems (Kennedy)/Out of The Past

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OUT OF THE PAST
WHEN, wrapped in twilight folds, you put awayWithin Time's darkened niche the worn-out day,      Say not that it is dead.It may seem cold and still and very white—A pallor on the edge of endless night,      A blur of nothingness,      A silence deep and dread.
And yet if in that day you lived a lie,Or shamed a faith, or put a suppliant by,      Or wronged a child of God, ​From out the shrouding shadows grim and blackOf some long after-year, it will reach back      Its phantom hands of pain      And smite you with its rod.

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