O voice once rich as dusk on canyon walls,
Now silenced by the toll of time’s command,
Thy thundered lines and brooding, golden drawls
Lie still beneath the stage’s barren sand.
Thou wert the flame in Morrison’s despair,
The ghost that mocked the bat with velvet gloom,
A knight of ice, with ever-haunted stare,
Who lit the screen, then vanished into gloom.
Though fate did steal thy voice with cruel art,
And choked the river flowing from thy soul,
Thy spirit, fierce, survives in every part
Where flick’ring light still makes the broken whole.
So rest, brave Val, within the reel and rhyme—
Thy name shall ride the winds of endless time.