

And through its halls the pipe and sistrum rang,
While wine and riot brought their scarlet stains;
Never a voice of elder marvels sang,
Nor any eye call’d up the hills and plains.

Thus down the years, till on one purple night
A drunken minstrel in his careless verse
Spoke the vile words that should not see the light,
And stirr’d the shadows of an ancient curse.

The shuddering dawn no single stone reveal’d,
But fled the blackness of a primal wood.

Forests may fall, but not the dusk they shield;
So on the spot where that proud city stood,
