The merchant princes of Phœnicia, and the minds that fashioned Elephanta?
Alas, for the poet hath forgotten them; and lo! they are outcasts of Memory;
Alas, that they are withered leaves, sapless and fallen from the chaplet of fame.
Speak, Etruria, whose bones be these, entombed with costly care,—
Tell out, Herculaneum, the titles that have sounded in those thy palaces,—
Lycian Xanthus, thy citadels are mute, and the honour of their architects hath died;
Copan and Palenque, dreamy ruins in the West, the forest hath swallowed up your sculptures;
Syracuse,—how silent of the past!—Carthage, thou art blotted from remembrance!
Egypt, wondrous shores, ye are buried in the sand-hills of forgetfulness!
Alas,—for in your glorious youth Time himself was young,