Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/121

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

THE WORLD'S CHANGES.

103

Oft when alone, in some calm hour,
When hushed and stilled is outward life,
Keen memory with reflecting power
Brings visions sad, yet sweet, and rife
With musings strange on quiet dead
On hearts that once did warm glow
With life and love, but now have fled,
Ne'er to return again, ah, no!

The World's Changes.

The solemn shadow that bears in his hands
The conquering scythe and the glass of sands,
Paused once on his flight where the sunrise shone,
On a warlike city's towers of stone;
And he asked of a panoplied soldier near,
"How long has this fortressed city been here?"
And the man looked up, man's px-ide on his brow—
"The city stands here from the ages of old;
And as it was then, and as it is now,
So will it endure till the funeral knell
Of the world be kn oiled,
As Eternity's annals shall tell."
And after a thousand years were o'er,
The shadow paused over the spot once more.

And vestige of none of a city lay there,
But lakes lay blue, and plains lay bare,
And the marshalled corn stood high and pale,
And a shepherd piped of love in a vale.
"How!" spake the shadow, "can temple and tower
Thus fleet, like mist from the morning hour?"
But the shepherd shook the long locks from his brow—
"The world is filled with sheep and corn;
Thus was it of old, thus it is now,
Thus, too, will it be while moon and sun,
Rule night and morn,
For Nature and life are one."
And after a thousand years were o'er,
The shadow paused over the spot once more.

And lo! in the room of the meadow-lands,
A sea foamed far over saffron sands,
And flashed in the eventide bright and dark,
And a fisher was casting his nets from a bark;