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Sitting on forgotten stairs;
Thinking about what I used to know,
In the days from whence I'd not a care.
They took me from darkness to light,
From which was black to white;
Played with me and set things right,
For all things true--an unblinded sight.
I remember days, not long since past,
When my world was turning shades;
When my world was unspeakably vast,
And to latter cares a pittance paid.
I remember, upon those steps,
A million friends were born and died;
A million memories made and kept,
Where I stood and laughed and cried.
For me, today, a different view
From those steps I behold;
A world pulled 'sunder and torn askew
Drenched in tears as I grow old.
No longer, from these dying stones,
Can I extract my fantasies;
My shoulders under the world's weight groan
My bitterness and my anger greive.
Some men, some wrongs, may come again,
Borne as the winter frost;
But no thing dies more fully than
An innocence once lost.