And men my prophet wail deride!
The solemn sorrow dies in scorn;
And lonely in the waste I hide
The tortured heart that would forewarn.
And the happy, unregarded,
Mocked by their fearful joy, I trod:
Oh! dark to me the lot awarded,
Thou evil Pythian god!

Thine oracle in vain to be,
Oh! wherefore am I thus consigned,
With eyes that every truth must see,
Lone in the city of the blind?
Cursed with the anguish of a power
To view the fates I may not thrall;
The hovering tempest still must lower,
The horror must befall.

Boots it, the veil to lift, and give
To sight the frowning fates beneath?
For error is the life we live,
And, oh, our knowledge is but death!
Take back the clear and awful mirror,
Shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare;
Thy truth is but a gift of terror,
When mortal lips declare.

My blindness give to me once more,
The gay, dim senses that rejoice;
The past's delighted songs are o'er