And perished from the large gaze of the sun.”
Eternity was on the pyramid,
And immortality on Greece and Rome;
But in them all the ancient Traitor hid,
And so they tottered like unstable foam.
There was no substance in their soaring hopes:
The voice of Thebes is now a desert cry;
A spider bars the road with filmy ropes,
Where once the feet of Carthage thundered by.
A bittern booms where once fair Helen laughed;