Befit

On What Befits

It befits a crown to rest upon a brow
Where thought is clear and duty stands austere,
Not upon brows that sweat and strain and bow
Beneath the weight of things we ought not wear.
It befits the grief that walks at eventide
To keep its pace with shadows, long and lean,
To find its voice not in a clash of pride,
But in the hush where broken dreams have been.

It befits the joy that greets the morning’s glance
To leap in sudden light, to spill like wine,
To lift the voice in spontaneous expanse
Of laughter bright as bells on steep design.
It befits the river, strong and deep and slow,
To carve its way through stone with patient might,
Not to dart and sparkle where the shallows show
A restlessness that clashes with its right.

But oh! When grief dons motley, loud and gay,
Or joy walks muffled in a fun’ral shroud,
When force is called where gentleness should sway,
And stillness bids the angry voice be loud—
Then does the spirit strain against the seam,
A garment wrongly cut, ill-fitted, grim:
For what befits is not a rigid scheme,
But felt deep in the bones, true and prim.
It lives not in the rule, but in the blood’s own tide—
The quiet knowing where we must reside.