But hither come, on yon swoln arch to gaze,
And view the vivid flash eruptive blare;
Light those high walls with transitory gleam,
Illume the air, and sparkle in the stream.
Ah! look, where yonder tempest-shaken cloud,
Awful and black as the chaosian shroud,
Breaks, like the waves which lash the sandy shore,
And speaks its mission in a feeble row.
Thus Meditation hears: "Aspiring height!
Of old, the splendid mansions of the great;
Thy fate (tremendous) lours upon the blast,
And waits to write on thy remains:--'tis past!
Oft have the genii of the hoary blade
Around thy walls their hell-born demons led;
Yet hast thou triumph'd o'er each monster's car,
And braved the ills of pestilential war:
Oft hast thou seen the circling seasons roll
In fond succession round thy native pole;
Defied the hoary matron of the ring,
And seen her sicken in the lap of Spring.
But, ah! no more thy time-clad head shall rise
To dare the tempest, while it shakes the skies;
Nor one small wreck invade the fair concave,
Nor shout above its crumbling basis, Save!
When rising zephyr from thy ruin brings
A world of atoms on its fairy wings."

Din horrible! as though the rebel train
Had sprung from chaos, fought, and fall'n again,
Raves the high bolt: how yon old structure fell;