The vision melts away, the motley crowd

Is veiled by Prospero in a passing cloud;

Like his dissolving pageantry they fade,

The vap’ry stuff whereof our dreams are made;

No more malignant winter to beguile,

Nor start the virgin’s tear, the judge’s smile;

Save when some annalist, like me, recalls

The ancient fame of those degraded walls;

Or till an age less hateful to the Muse

To their old shape restore the anxious pews.