The dust of glory all around me lies, All Rome to-day sits on the buried past, The ashes of dead nations and their Her later walls with sculptured blocks are flecked: kings: I hear no voice save what from out The spoilers toiled for ages fierce and nal dome: Her grandeur tells of Rome before its For wanton pastime or for kilns of lime! The very mortar in St. Peter's wall Hath had its votaries in that grand old time When Poesy and Art o'erlorded all. But that is past. What sound is this I hear More than the lark's? As from a mournful lyre And dropt from a hand relentlessly "Here I stand, like a Persian priest, "Beheld from here, with march unending, By night and by day the sky is ascending; This is the vision of youth-the scope Where rises the golden scale of Hope, When the heart in its freshness stout and hale Recks not of the opposing scale, Which, though unseen in the future air, Sinks and sinks with its weight of despair. "Nothing sets save yonder sail Chased away by an outward gale, And every hour to my straining gaze Some new barque issues through the haze, Fresh, perchance, from the Orient, From under the guns of Arabian forts, Or out of Al-Raschid's golden ports? "I look to the east-all things ascend, And with them the eye and the heart must tend, Only the heavy earth opprest, |