Sole and mysterious relic of a race
That long has ceased to be, whose very name,
Time, ever bearing on with steady pace,
Has swept away from earth, leaving thy frame,
Darkened by thirty centuries, to claim,
Among the records of the things that were,
Its place,--Tradition has forgot thee--Fame,
If ever fame was thine, has ceased to bear
Her record of thee,--say, what dost thou here?
Three thousand years ago a mother's arms
Were wrapped about that dark and ghastly form,
And all the loveliness of childhood's charms
Glowed on that cheek, with life then flushed and warm;
Say, what preserved thee from the hungry worm
That haunts with gnawing tooth the gloomy bed
Spread for the lifeless? Tell what could disarm
Decay of half its power, and while it fed
On empires--races--make it spare the dead!
How strange to contemplate the wondrous story,
When those deep sunken eyes first saw the light,
Lost Babylon was in her midday glory,--
Upon her pride and power had fall'n no blight;
And Tyre, the ancient mariner's delight,
Whose merchantmen were princes, and whose name
Was theme of praise to all, has left her site
To utter barren nakedness and shame,--
Yet thou, amid all change, art still the same.
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