Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted;
Wearied for months at sea—yet ever painted
Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain
Invalidated pain,
Cured the sick soul—made nugatory evil
Of man or devil.
Alas, and well-a-day! we know
What idle dreams were these that fooled men so.
On yonder hillside sleep in nameless graves,
To which they went untended, the poor slaves
Of fruitless toil; the victims of a fever
Called homesickness—no remedy found ever;
Or slain by vices that grow rankly where
Men madly do and dare,
In alternations of high hope and deep abysses
Of recklessnesses.
Painfully, and by violence,
Even as heaven is taken, thou wert dragged whence
Nature had hidden thee—whose face is worn
With anxious furrows, and her bosom torn
In the hard strife—and ever yet there lingers
Upon these hills work for the effacing fingers
Of time, the healer, who makes all things seem
A half forgotten dream;
Who smooths deep furrows and lone graves together,
By touch of wind and weather.
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