The gods had loosed him from fears

 In a vision of blameless hell,

 Has gone to the dial to read

 Those signs in the outland tongue,

 Written beyond the need

 Of the simple and the young.

 For immortal life, they say,

 Were his who, loving so,

22

 Could explain the writing away

 As a legend written in snow.

 But always his innocent eyes

 Were frozen into the stone.

 From that awful first surprise

 His soul must return alone.

 In the morning there he lay

 Dead in the sun’s warm gold.

 And no man knows to this day

 What the dim moondial told.

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