You read the earth, as does my mother heaven.

Both books are dark to me—only I feel

That this one thing

And this one word in me must be declared;

That to forget is not to be restored;

To lose with time the sense of what we did

Cancels not that we did; what’s done remains—

I am my brother’s murderer. Woe to me!

Abel is dead. No prayers to empty heaven,

No vegetative kindness of the earth,