To a tumult of whitening foam and confusèd might
That drowns in a single night many a mud-made city;
And cities of boats, and frail cities of lath and reed,
Are whirled away without pity or set afloat in a pale,
Swirling, shallow sea ... and their names seem lost for ever
Till a stranger nomad race drive their herds to the sad place
Where old sorrows lie forgotten, and raise upon the rotten
Level waste another brood to await another flood.
'But I never might attain to this melancholy plain
For the mountains rose between; stark in my path they lay