The Star-Treader and Other Poems

The twilight reigns above the fallen noon

Within an ancient land, whose after-time

Lies like a shadow o'er its ruined prime.

Like rising mist the night increases soon

Round shattered palaces, ere yet the moon

On mute, unsentried walls and turrets climb,

And touch with whiteness of sepulchral rime

The desert where a city's bones are strewn.

She comes at last; unburied, thick, they show

In all the hoary nakedness of stone.

From out a shadow like the lips of Death

Issues a wind, that through the stillness blown,

Cries like a prophet's ghost with wailing breath

The weirds of finished and forgotten woe.