Vestigia Retrorsum Poem by George Henry Boker

There is a spot I call accursed,
Because my thoughts for ever wing
Back to its gloom, from whence they burst,
And settle on the loathsome thing.

The thick black pool, the waterfall,
Swart crags that nurture noxious vines,
The long, unbending outer wall
Made by the solid depth of pines;

The reptile weeds that crawl about
The rotting shore, the glaring flowers,
Nauseous with odors, that give out
No grace of heaven's baptizing showers;

The hollow roar that fills the scene--
A sound caught up and smothered in
By the close pines which rise between
The world and that unholy din.

All creatures that abhor the day
Find harbor in the rocky lair,
And all the foulest birds of prey
Light slowly down and settle there.

The moving powers of air bewail
This blotch upon earth's face allowed--
Moaned by the high o'erpassing gale,
Wept over by the flying cloud,

Cut by the edged hail that pours
With added wrath here, choked with snow,
Scathed by the thunder-cloud that roars
Its bolts down, blow re-echoing blow.

Still it rises--rocks and trees,
Pool, waterfall, and rank-grown sod--
Above my better memories,
And frowns between me and my God.

This spot had once another look,
Its sounds were as a choral psalm,
Ere sin's and sorrow's hands I took,
And walked between them, palm in palm.

Ah! yes, her beauty gave the place
A wondrous light, and my young rhyme,
Fervid with love's creative grace,
Brought on the spring before its time.

Yea, summer came while May was young,
And smiled to see the lovers meet,
And all her flowery censers swung
Their perfumes round our trysting-seat.

Too soon the vernal bloom! too soon
The year's maturer charms! their dust
Whirled 'twixt us and the harvest-moon
Ere autumn blew his frosty gust.

She fell--oh God! I know not how--
Fell from her over trust in me:
The flowers had turned to dust, and now
Our love had turned to misery.

Oh fool! the promised fruit I sought
Was ripening into sweetest use;
I snatched it ere its time, and caught
Upon my lip but acrid juice.

Nature shrank from me all aghast,
Men whispered as they passed my door,
The precious lights of life waned fast,
And heaven seemed farther than before.

I would have done her right. We met:
I owned my crime, I urged her claim;
There was no ebb of love, and yet
We turned aside with common shame.

We cuold not get our eyes to meet;
We could not link our hands again;
I talked, but words had ceased to cheat;
We parted--'twas relief from pain.

Priest, vow and ring, all things arrange--
Shrewd brokers in our worldly mart--
I tell ye, these are poor exchange
To offer for a broken heart.

When winter heaped her grave with snow,
What right had I to make my moans?
What right to hope a tear would flow,
Or anger heaven with selfish groans?

THe vanished joy, the void of love,
The heart that nothing fills within,
The fear that dares not look above,
Are reliques of my early sin.

Better beside her placid tomb
This aching head for years had lain,
And o'er my mound the winter's gloom
Had snowed a mountain from the plain,

Than thus to live--a life in death,
That courts no peace and shuns no strife,
A slow, dull drawing of the breath,
A living you cannot call life.

I wonder not the dell is cursed,
Upon this world a hideous blot,
I only wonder earth n'er burst,
To swallow up the hateful spot.

The pool, the wood, the waterfall,
The flowers, the cliffs, the gloom--my brain
Whirls with a picture of ye all--
I rise, and curse ye all again!