With characters forevermore unread,
Only the wind’s soft hands went up and down
Scattering the obliterative sands.
I, led in trance by shapes invisible,
Approached a temple’s splendid architrave
Half sunk in sod betwixt its columns’ bases,
And there by sudden divination read
The deep-cut legend of that awful gate:
Appease with sacrifice the unknown powers.
The next vision is of the city in its present state, “builded on like dust,” but teeming with activity and material purpose, through which a glimmering ideal begins to dawn: