Those days are dead, and hope no newer birth. 
I left thy shores, blue stream, at His command 
Who reared the mountains from the shaken earth ; 
Who holds the lightning in His holy hand, 
And binds the stars in adamantine band, 
And yearns towards the children of His mind. 
I left their summer and their dewy strand 
To pass a life of work, alone, unkind, 
To fight a way toward heaven, mute, desolate and 
blind. 
 
The dusty desert glimmers in the night, 
A solitary palm-tree shades the well ; 
I am alone, a weary eremite 
Striving the secrets of the stars to tell, 
And every blade of grass that makes the dell 
Is counted and divined by me, who stare 
With eyes half blinded by the fires of Hell 
That my wild brain imagines everywhere, 
Roaring and raging round with red infernal glare. 
 
The yellow sand toward the deep sky extends : 
A dusky mirage would confuse my view ; 
 
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