Caught sound of the world's gray tears
Or sense of the sun's gold glee,

Whenever the wild control
Burned out to a mortal kiss,
And the shuddering storm-swept soul
Climbed to its acme of bliss,

The green-gold light of the dead
Stood still in purple space,
And a record blind and dread
Was graved on the dial's face.

And once in a thousand years
Some youth who loved so well
The gods had loosed him from fears
In a vision of blameless hell,

Has gone to the dial to read
Those signs in the outland tongue,
Written beyond the need
Of the simple and the young.

For immortal life, they say,
Were his who, loving so,
Could explain the writing away
As a legend written in snow.

But always his innocent eyes
Were frozen into the stone.