University of Virginia Library

Anon I said I would not die;
I loathed to live—I feared to die—
So I went forward, till I stood
Amid a marble solitude,
A ruined town of ancient day.
I rested where some steps away
From other work of human hand
Two solitary columns stand,
Two columns on a mild hill-side,
Like sea-marks of a shrunken tide:
Their shafts were by the sea-breeze worn,
Beneath them waved the verdant corn;
But a few paces from the crown
Of that green summit, farther down,
A fallen pillar on the plain,
Slow sinking in the earth again,
Bedding itself in dark black mould,
Lay moveless, where it first had rolled.
It once had been a pillar high,
And pointing to the starry sky;
But now lay prostrate, its own weight
Now serving but to fix its state,
To sink it in its earthy bed.
I gazed, and to myself I said,
‘This pillar lying on the plain
The hand of man might raise again,
And set it as in former days;
But the fall'n spirit who shall raise,
What power on earth? what power in heaven?’
How quickly was an answer given
Unto this voice of my despair!
But now I sat in silence there,
I thought upon the vanished time,
And my irrevocable prime,
My baffled purpose, wasted years,
My sin, my misery—and my tears
Fell thick and fast upon the sands;
I hid my face within my hands,
For tears are strange that find their way
Under the open eye of day,
Under the broad and glorious sun,
Full in the heavens, as mine have done,
And as upon that day they did,
Unnoticed, unrestrained, unchid.
How long I might have let them flow
Without a check, I do not know,
But presently, while yet I kept
That attitude of woe, and wept,
A strange voice sounded in mine ears—
‘You cannot wash your heart with tears!’
I quickly turned, and vexed to be
Seen in my spirit's agony,
In anger had almost replied.
An aged man was at my side;
I think that since my life began,
I never saw an older man
Than he who stood beside me then,
And with mild accents said again:
‘You cannot cleanse your heart with tears,
Though you should weep as many years
As our first Father, when he sat
Uncomforted on Ararat—
This would not help you, and the tear
Which does not heal, will scald and sear.
What is your sorrow?’