Could you but know, we should not beat our hands
Blindly against the iron bars of regret,
Or walk indifferent to our misery,
Endeavouring to forget
What's not forgetable; or build with zeal
Houses on cliffs near the encroaching sea,
To watch the waters steal
Our own foundations.

Could you but know, we should not say, “Ah well!
No power on earth can resurrect the past.
What was, in very surety had to be:
The loveliest flowers at last
Turn to decay and in their rotting stink.
Where kindness labours ineffectually
To bridge the gulf, loves stands upon the brink
Frozen to impotence.”

Could you but know, these submerged lives of ours
Held fast with weeds in waters fathomless,
Would free themselves, and through the deep gloom rise
Into the light of their own happiness;
And these our fretful wraiths
Would no more hover shivering in disguise,
But walk clear-eyed in faith's
Full-bodied confidence.

But monstrous Ignorance sprawls like a beast
In drunken sleep over the ruins where
Our house of life once lifted tower and dome
Into the trembling air.
Shall we, for fear of him, for ever lose
Our heavenly paradise, our earthly home,
When we might all his tyranny abuse,
And where he now forbids us freely roam?
When we might use
Each stone and rafter, touched with knowledge now,
To build the house our dreams have prophesied,
Against whose walls the winds of time would bow
And waves of chance fall to a harmless tide?

O, since the power to build beyond decay
Lies in these hands, let us no more delay.