THE END OF ALL.
Wandering along a waste
Where once a city stood,
I saw a ruined tomb,
And in that tomb an urn,—
A sacred funeral-urn,
Without a name or date,
And in its hollow depths
A little human dust!
Whose dust is this, I asked,
In this forgotten urn?
And where this waste now lies
What city rose of old?
None knows; its name is lost;
It was, and is no more:
Gone like a wind that blew
A thousand years ago!
Its melancholy end
Will be the end of all;
For, as it passed away,
The universe will pass!
Its sole memorial
Some ruined world, like ours;
A solitary urn,
Full of the dust of men!