I wouldn't do this except I like the poem.
To SA
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house
that your eyes might be shining for me
When I came
Death was my servant on the road, till we came near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and
took you apart:
Into his gentleness
So our love's earnings was your cast off body to be
held one moment
Before earth's soft hands would explore your face and
the blind worms transmute
Your failing substance.
Men prayed me to set my work, the inviolate house
in 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.
- T.E. Lawrence, To SA
The poem was pretty clearly written for Selim Ahmed, an Arab boy who was his companion and possibly his lover. In the first version of Seven Pillars, the last line of the first stanza is "When we came."
To SA
I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands
and wrote my will across the sky in stars
To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house
that your eyes might be shining for me
When I came
Death was my servant on the road, till we came near
and saw you waiting:
When you smiled, and in sorrowful envy he outran me and
took you apart:
Into his gentleness
So our love's earnings was your cast off body to be
held one moment
Before earth's soft hands would explore your face and
the blind worms transmute
Your failing substance.
Men prayed me to set my work, the inviolate house
in 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.
- T.E. Lawrence, To SA
The poem was pretty clearly written for Selim Ahmed, an Arab boy who was his companion and possibly his lover. In the first version of Seven Pillars, the last line of the first stanza is "When we came."