Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/510

472

Yes, there are stories registered on high,

Yes, there are stains time's fingers cannot blot,

Deeds that shall live when they who did them, die;

Things that may cease, but never be forgot:

Yet some there are, their very lives would give

To be remembered thus, and yet they cannot live.

But thou, imperial City! that hast stood

In greatness once, in sackcloth now and tears,

A mighty name, for evil or for good,

Even in the loneness of thy widowed years:

Thou that hast gazed, as the world hurried by,

Upon its headlong course with sad prophetic eye.

Is thine the laurel-crown that greatness wreathes

Round the wan temples of the hallowed dead—

Is it the blighting taint dishonor breathes

In fires undying o'er the guilty head,

Or the brief splendor of that meteor light

That for a moment gleams, and all again is night?

Fain would we deem that thou hast risen so high

Thy dazzling light an eagle's gaze should tire;

No meteor brightness to be seen and die,

No passing pageant, born but to expire,

But full and deathless as the deep dark hue

Of ocean's sleeping face, or heaven's unbroken blue.