Seven Pillars of Wisdom

by T.E. Lawrence

I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands and wrote my will across the sky in stars To earn you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house, that your eyes might be shining for me When we came. Death seemed my servant on the road, till we were near and saw you waiting: When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and took you apart: Into his quietness. Love, the way-weary, groped to your body, our brief wage ours for the moment Before earth’s soft hand explored your shape, and the blind worms grew fat upon Your substance. Men prayed me that I set our work, the inviolate house, as a memory of you. But for fit monument I shattered it, unfinished: and now The little things creep out to patch themselves hovels in the marred shadow Of your gift.

We no doubt enjoyed more the rare moments of peace and forgetfulness; but I remember more the agony, the terrors, and the mistakes.

a contempt, not for other men, but for all they do.