That midnight when the moon was tall

I walked alone by the white lake—yet with a vanished race

And with a race to come. To walk with dead men is to pray,

To walk with men unborn—to find the way.

I have seen many days. That night I watched them all.

I have seen many a sign and trace

Of beauty and of hope:

An elm at night; an arrowy waterfall;

The illimitable round unbroken scope

Of life; a friend’s unfrightened dying face.

Though I have heard the cry of fear in crowded loneliness of space,

Dead laughter from the lips of lust,

Anger from fools, falsehood from sycophants,

(My fear, my lips, my anger, my disgrace)

Though I have held a golden cup and tasted rust,

Seen cities rush to be defiled

By the bright-fevered and consuming sin

Of making only coin and lives to count it in,

Yet once I watched with Celia,

Watched on a ferry an Italian child,

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