Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/135

 1830-40.] HARVEY D. LITTLE. 119 PALMYRA. How art thou fallen, mighty one ! Queen of the desert's arid brow ! The evening's shade, the morning's sun. Rest only on thy ruins now. Thine hour is o'er, thy glory's done, A dreary waste thy charms endow I In thy proud days thou seem'dst a star, Amidst a desert's sullen gloom, Shedding thy radiance afar O'er nature's solitary tomb. But time, whose gentlest touch can mar, Hath sear'd thy tall palmetto's bloom. The shouts of joy — the voice of mirth, That waked to life thy marble domes: Thy crowded marts — thy peopled earth — Thy sculptur'd halls, and sacred homes, Are silent now. Thy faded worth A barren wilderness entombs. The savage beast hath made his lair. Where pomp and power once held their sway ; And silence, with a fearful air. Sits darkly brooding o'er decay : And marble fanes, divinely fair. Have bowed beneath thine evil day. Round polish'd shafts the ivy twines A wreath funereal for thy fate : And through thy temples' broken shrines The moaning wind sweeps desolate. But the mild star of evening shines Benignly o'er thy fallen state. Oh, how thy silence chills the heart Of the lone traveler, whose tread Is o'er the fragments of thine art. Thou wondi'ous City of the Dead ! Thy glory cannot yet depart. Though all of life hath from thee fled. AWAY, AWAY, I SCORN TIIEM ALL. Away, away, I scorn them all, The mirthful board, the joyous glee ; The laughter of the festive hall ; The long wild shouts of revelry ; To their vain worshipers they bring Seasons of bitter sorrowing. But, oh, by far the wiser part, To visit that secluded spot. Where death hath quench'd some faith- ful heart, And closed, for aye, its varied lot : For there, beside the funeral urn, Lessons of wisdom we may learn. The brief but busy scenes of life — Its fickle pleasures, and its woes — Its mingled happiness and strife — Its fearful and its final close, Pass through the mind in swift review, With all their colorings strictly true. We see the littleness of man — The end of all his pride and power : — Scarce has his pilgrimage began E'er death's dark clouds upon him lower ; And rank, and pomp, and greatness, flee Like meteor gleams ! — and where is he ? Yes, where is he, whose mighty mind Could soar beyond the bounds of space. And in some heavenly jilanet find The spirit's final resting place ? Gone ! gone, in darkness, down to dust ! "Ashes to ashes," mingle must. Well may we learn from life's last scene, The fearful lessons of man's fate : How frail the barriers between The living and the dead's estate. The elastic air — the vital breath — Is but the link 'twixt life and death.