LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

1 Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
2 Miles and miles
3 On the solitary pastures where our sheep
4 Half-asleep
5 Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
6 As they crop--
7 Was the site once of a city great and gay,
8 (So they say)
9 Of our country's very capital, its prince
10 Ages since
11 Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
12 Peace or war.

13 Now the country does not even boast a tree,
14 As you see,
15 To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
16 From the hills
17 Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
18 Into one)
19 Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
20 Up like fires
21 O'er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
22 Bounding all
23 Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest
24 Twelve abreast.

25 And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
26 Never was!
27 Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o'er-spreads
28 And embeds
29 Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
30 Stock or stone--
31 Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
32 Long ago;
33 Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
34 Struck them tame;
35 And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
36 Bought and sold.

37 Now--the single little turret that remains
38 On the plains,
39 By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
40 Overscored,
41 While the patching houseleek's head of blossom winks
42 Through the chinks--
43 Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
44 Sprang sublime,
45 And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
46 As they raced,
47 And the monarch and his minions and his dames
48 Viewed the games.

49 And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
50 Smiles to leave
51 To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
52 In such peace,
53 And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
54 Melt away--
55 That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
56 Waits me there
57 In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
58 For the goal,
59 When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
60 Till I come.

61 But he looked upon the city, every side,
62 Far and wide,
63 All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades'
64 Colonnades,
65 All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,--and then
66 All the men!
67 When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
68 Either hand
69 On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
70 Of my face,
71 Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
72 Each on each.

73 In one year they sent a million fighters forth
74 South and North,
75 And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
76 As the sky
77 Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force--
78 Gold, of course.
79 O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
80 Earth's returns
81 For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
82 Shut them in,
83 With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
84 Love is best.