If We Could Read The Secret History

With Useless Endeavour Forever, Forever, Is Sisyphus Rolling His Stone Up The Mountain!

Learn To Labour And To Wait.

And The Bright Faces Of My Young Companions Are Wrinkled Like My Own, Or Are No More.

There In Seclusion And Remote From Men The Wizard Hand Lies Cold, Which At Its Topmost Speed Let Fall The Pen, And Left The Tale Half Told. Ah! Who Shall Lift That Wand Of Magic Power, And The Lost Clew Regain? The Unfinished Window In Aladdin's Tower Unfinished Must Remain!

Nor Deem The Irrevocable Past As Wholly Wasted, Wholly Vain, If, Rising On Its Wrecks, At Last To Something Nobler We Attain.