Now that I lose all that I hoped to gain
and stumble through the ruins of my life
alone and lonely, wearied by the pain
of ever struggling through my days of strife -
The scalpel of my days, a butcher's knife,
has severed all the fibres of my worth
and of my Being leaves the cancer growth.
Around me, wheresoe'er I cast my eyes,
lie strewn the ruins of my hope and trust.
I dreamed - and lived awake to see arise,
stone by stone a Temple from the dust -
now dissolution day by day has made
a desolation of the dreams I had.
In Beauty's temple, shining Halls of Thought
of Wisdom's granite quarried from the earth.
A dreaming Garden daily delved - I wrought
fair images of Faith and Love and Mirth.
Dear God, I look about me and I see
no stone complete, no blossom on the tree.
I shall not look again - my eyes deride
my soul in seeing here its strength portrayed
where grass grows through the pavements of my pride
and fallen pillars crumble in the shade.
Within the Garden brambles choke the rose
and lichens fester where the statues pose.
A wind of pain sighs through the tangled grass,
a mist of miseries creeps o'er the stones
and wreaths in whisps through windows blind of glass -
the gnarled laburnum creaks, the aspen groans
and all that was to whisper and be mild
is stark and sombre, groaning, waste and wild.
Within this wilderness, this crumbling waste,
is mockery made of my resolution.
The shining Temple of my hopes, effaced,
is monument to my own dissolution.
This is the agony the desert hath -
forsaken ruins of deserted faith.
The twilight darkens round me into gloom -
the fitful moon gleams down through scudding clouds.
The crumbling desolation of the tomb
lies heaped and scattered round me - trees have shrouds.
There is no shape I see but has its shadow
of grief that makes a graveyard of a meadow.
Once I was likened to a spring and stream -
clear, sparkling, rushing in the spate of Youth:
I rushed, drawn on toward the sea-like dream
and flashed reflections of the sky of Truth.
Yet, now, I lie a cesspool, stagnant, sour
from the impurities I travelled o'er.
What filter-bed of toil is there may cleanse
these hands, this heart, this mind, the soul of me?
The rank weed, only, festers in the fens
nor will the pure thoughts now thrive in me.
The foulness of the mire stains the air.
around me hangs the aura of Despair.
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