Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1833.pdf/35

Rh

day by day, and hour by hour, The sacred stream floats past, And rises higher o’er the shrines, Doomed to its depths at last.

And soon above those stately domes The fatal tide will flow, And carved spire and sculptured tower Sleep in the depths below

The temples have no worshippers, The altar be unknown, And weed and ooze in darkness rest Upon the polished stone.

Oh, likeness of humanity, ’Tis thus that life flows on, Till every fabric which we built In early youth is gone.

The sacred and the beautiful, The mighty and sublime; Alas, in vain, the heart would save One single wreck from time.