...both as a bereavement which amounts to death-by-word ("decree") — O first created Beam, and thou great Word, 'Let there be light, and light was over all'; Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? (11. 83-85) —and what follows, a lament for the siting of seeing in the eye, takes us directly to...

...of noon, Irrecoverably dark, total Eclipse Without all hope of day! O first created Beam, and thou Let there be light, and light was over all; Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree? The Sun to me is dark And silent as the Moon, When she deserts the night Hid in her vacant interlunar...