Edwin John Dove Pratt

In Lantern Light

I could not paint, nor could I draw
    The look that searched the night;
The bleak refinement of the face I saw
    In lantern light.

A cunning hand might seize the crag,
    Or stay the flight of a gull,
Or the rocket's flash; or more—the lightning jag
    That lit the hull.

But as a man born blind must steal
    His colors from the night
By hand, I had to touch that face to feel
    It marble white.