Darlington Hall. The linen, the silver, the practiced calm. I served the silence as if it were grace; kept my face when the years moved on. "Dignity." I wore it thin. Miss Kenton’s door closed to the wind. What I withheld returns at dusk. The remains of the day — What’s left when the light withdraws? The remains of the day — In a butler’s hands, in a butler’s flaws. I kept to duty; Duty kept me away. The remains of the day — Is the price of what I would not say. My father’s room, the measured breath; a life of forms, a studied death. The road unspools, the country lies under a sky that will not answer why. A small regret. A late repair. "Can one ever really speak?" Too late for ease, too late for sleep. The remains of the day — What’s left when the light withdraws? The remains of the day — In a butler’s hands, in a butler’s flaws. I kept to duty; Duty kept me away. The remains of the day — Is the price of what I would not say. The day goes down. The words stay still.
