Faint white pillars that seem to fade <br />As you look from here are the first one sees <br />Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade <br />Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees. <br />Now many a man, given woods like these, <br />And a house like that, and the Briony gold, <br />Would have said, "There are still some gods to please, <br />And houses are built without hands, we're told. <br /> <br />There are the pillars, and all gone gray. <br />Briony's hair went white. You may see <br />Where the garden was if you come this way. <br />That sun-dial scared him, he said to me; <br />"Sooner or later they strike," said he, <br />But he knew too much for the life he led. <br /> <br />And who knows all knows everything <br />That a patient ghost at last retrieves; <br />There's more to be known of his harvesting <br />When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves; <br />And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves <br />For Briony now in this ageless oak, <br />Driving the first of its withered leaves <br />Over the stones where the fountain broke.<br /><br />Edwin Arlington Robinson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fragment-3/
