Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/98



Far opening down some woodland deep In their own quiet glade should sleep The relics dear to thought, And wild-flower wreaths from side to side Their waving tracery hang, to hide What ruthless Time has wrought.

Such are the visions green and sweet That o'er the wistful fancy fleet In Asia's sea-like plain, Where slowly, round his isles of sand, Euphrates through the lonely land Winds toward the pearly main.

Slumber is there, but not of rest; There her forlorn and weary nest The famished hawk has found, The wild dog howls at fall of night, The serpent's rustling coils affright The traveller on his round.

What shapeless form, half lost on high, Half seen against the evening sky, Seems like a ghost to glide, And watch, from Babel's crumbling heap, Where in her shadow, fast asleep, Lies fallen imperial Pride?

With half-closed eye a lion there Is basking in his noontide lair, Or prowls in twilight gloom. The golden city's king he seems, Such as in old prophetic dreams Sprang from rough ocean's womb.

But where are now his eagle wings, That sheltered erst a thousand kings, Hiding the glorious sky From half the nations, till they own No holier name, no mightier throne? That vision is gone by.

Quenched is the golden statue's ray, The breath of heaven has blown away What toiling earth had piled,