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{15}

{15}

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,

 Prev. P 13/162 next