First I saw colossal spectres
Of dead cities: Troy—once Hector's
Pride; then Babylon and Tyre;
Karnac, Carthage, and the gray
Walls of Thebes,—Apollo's lyre
Built;—then Rome and Nineveh.
Empires followed: first, in seeming,
Old Chaldea lost in dreaming;
Egypt next, a bulk Memnonian
Staring from her pyramids;