But tho' art's flower shall fade, again the seed
Onward shall speed,
Quickening the land from lake to ocean's roar.
V
Art lives, tho' Greece may never
From the ancient mold
As once of old
Exhale to heaven the inimitable bloom;
Yet from that tomb
Beauty walks forth to light the world forever!
THE VANISHING CITY
I
Enraptured memory, and all ye powers of being,
To new life waken! Stamp the vision clear
On the soul's inmost substance. O, let seeing
Be more than seeing; let the entrancèd ear
Take deep these surging sounds, inweaved with light
Of unimagined radiance; let the intense
Illumined loveliness that thrills the night
Strike in the human heart some deeper sense!
So shall these domes that meet heaven's curvèd blue,
And yon long, white, imperial colonnade,
And many-columned peristyle, endue
The mind with beauty that shall never fade;
Tho' all too soon to dark oblivion wending—
Reared in one happy hour to know as swift an ending.
II
Thou shalt of all the cities of the world
Famed for their grandeur, evermore endure
Imperishably and all alone impearled
