Anne Evans: Poems and Music :: :: University of Virginia Library

A mighty voice once echoed o'er the sad
And sinful world, for evermore to be
Re-echoed on; bidding the slave be free,
The guilty reconciled, the wretched glad;
Preaching a conquest over all things bad,
Revealing Truth and Life: so blest are we.
Yet says the man of facts, “'Tis ours to see:
What need of hearing?” Miserably mad,
He leaves his place, too narrow as he thinks,
To wander in strange deserts, far and wide;
And grasping as a clue some curious links
Whereof the last falls earthward at his side,
Confronts the blank face of a heathen sphinx,
And cries, “We have no better hope, nor guide!”