[ CANTO THIRD.]
THE GATHERING.
I.
Time rolls his ceaseless course. The race of yore,
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marveling boyhood legends store,
Of their strange ventures happ’d[163] by land or sea,
How are they blotted from the things that be!
How few, all weak and wither’d of their force,
Wait on the verge of dark eternity,