THE CHIMAERA
O, who will slay the last chimaera, Time?
Though Love and Death have many a cunning dart—
Despite of these, and close-wrought webs of Art,
And Slumber, with a slow Lethean lime—
Still, still, he lives; and though thy feet attain
The lunar peaks of ice and crystal, he,
Some night of agonized eternity
With brazen teeth shall gnaw thy fretted brain.
Gorged with the dust of thrones and fanes destroyed—
With lidless eyes like moons of adamant,
And vaulted mouth emportalling the void,
He crouches like a passive sphinx before
Some temple gate, or, grinning, moves to grant
Thine entrance at the monarch’s golden door.