Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill—
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro’ the thick twined vine—
To watch the emerald-color’d water falling
Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus wreath divine!
Noiselessly and, at times, almost imperceptibly, we glided down the majestic Tigris which through the broad desert waste floats
Changeless to the changeless sea.
With ever renewed interest we gazed on the silent ruins whose history was ended before that of Ancient Rome began. The Forum, the Palatine, the Colosseum, the Mole of Hadrian belong in their splendor to an age when the more imposing ruins along the Tigris were hoary with the dust of centuries or long buried under the shifting sands of the desert.