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They cut it down, and where the pitch-black aisles |
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Of forest night had hid eternal things, |
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They scaled the sky with towers and marble piles |
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To make a city for their revellings. |
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White and amazing to the lands around |
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That wondrous wealth of domes and turrets rose; |
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Crystal and ivory, sublimely crowned |
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With pinnacles that bore unmelting snows. |
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And through its halls the pipe and sistrum rang, |
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While wine and riot brought their scarlet stains; |
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Never a voice of elder marvels sang, |
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Nor any eye called up the hills and plains. |
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Thus down the years, till on one purple night |
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A drunken minstrel in his careless verse |
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Spoke the vile words that should not see the light, |
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And stirred the shadows of an ancient curse. |
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Forests may fall, but not the dusk they shield; |
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So on the spot where that proud city stood, |
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The shuddering dawn no single stone revealed, |
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But fled the blackness of a primal wood. |
