Yet, mine ancestral city, for thy sake
A lingering interest on this earth I take;
In the dim midnight ’tis for thee I wake.
Softly the starlight falleth over fanes
That rise above thy myrtle-wooded plains,
Where summer hath her loveliest domains.
Beneath, the gardens spread their pleasant shade,
The lutes are hushed that twilight music made,
Sleep on the world her honey-spell hath laid.
Sweet come the winds that o’er these flower-beds rove,
I only breathe the perfumes that ye love.
Spirits! my incense summons ye above.
What of yon stately city, where are shrined
The warrior’s and the poet’s wreath combined—
All the high honours of the human mind!
Her walls are bright with colours, whose fine dyes
Embody shapes that seem from yonder skies,
And in her scrolls the world’s deep wisdom lies.
What of her future?—Through the silvery smoke
I see the distant vision I invoke.
These glorious walls have bowed to time’s dark yoke.
I see a plain of desert sand extend
Scattered with ruins, where the wild flowers bend,
And the green ivy, like a last sad friend.
Low are the marble columns on the sand,
The palm-trees that have grown among them stand
As if they mocked the fallen of the land.
Hence, ye dark Spirits! bear the dream away;
To-morrow but repeateth yesterday;
First, toil—then, desolation and decay.
Life has one vast stern likeness in its gloom,
We toil with hopes that must themselves consume—
The wide world round us is one mighty tomb.
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