The answer was that dyke and fosse were useless when we had the Cross,
With other relics by the score, to guard against defeat or loss.
My prophecies of coming ills fell on deaf ears and weakly wills.
I did my best. You know I did, who saw me peer beyond the hills
Where Karak like a lighthouse loomed at waves of sand that never spumed,
The tideless main, an ocean-plain bare, petrified. Its silence boomed.
I saw in all that vastitude, the one, the drab, the many-hued,
No sign of life, no moving speck; and yet I knew that trouble brewed.
I tortured every hour to find material things to prop behind—
Forgive me, God!—Your earthly realm. The need was great, for it was blind.