Page:The city of dreadful night - and other poems (IA cityofdreadfulni00thomrich).pdf/88

 In broad majestic bulk alone, As in thrice venerable age, He stood at once the royal throne, The monarch, the experienced sage:

I know what is and what has been; Not anything to me comes strange, Who in so many years have seen And lived through every kind of change. I know when men are good or bad, When well or ill, he slowly said; When sad or glad, when sane or mad, And when they sleep alive or dead.

At this last word of solemn lore A tremor circled through the gloom, As if a crash upon the floor Had jarred and shaken all the room: For nearly all the listening things Were old and worn, and knew what curse Of violent change death often brings, From good to bad, from bad to worse;