THE FOLLOWING IS MERELY AN ABSTRACT PICTURE OF RUIN, AND HAS BUT A SLIGHT ALLUSION TO ANY FACTS RECORDED IN HISTORY.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
Of that great Puissance which overthrows
The kingliest seats of famous conquerors,
And fells the peasant's roof with equal sway,
Unpeopling earth, and bringing all to nought,
Under the funeral shadow of his wings,―
I would trace out a feeble record here.
Even from the grave's enchaining sleep, and rose
From out the depths of the full gloom. To him
Was given the power to roam, a certain space,
Throughout the clime wherein his life had been,
In the forgotten reign of early kings,
The shepherd-kings of old. Fleeter than eagles,
He sought his mountain birth-place, and the haunts
Where his youth gathered its delights; where first
He bounded through the lonely wooded wilds,
Along the fresh shores of the mountain-lakes,
With tireless limbs, and all a hunter's joy,
In ancient sunny hours. When Earth was young,
He had been of the sons of high renown,
One of most wondrous deeds, a vanquisher
Of tyrants, and a lawgiver whose thoughts
Were mightier than a giant-host to guard
His birth-land strongly, such an one as he
Of Thebes,—a worthy of the first pure time.
He found the place where, once, his home had been;
Where, once, a mount, clad with far-spreading forests,
Reared its huge head, in lasting snows arrayed,
High as the summer-clouds. All round its base,
Of old, were many cities, and that height
Was of fair isles and peopled lands the wonder.
He sought that mount, and found it not. Its place
Was empty. The fair cities, like their dwellers,
Were buried. The vast woods that had been, were not,
And left but nakedness and barrenness.
The wide lakes glittered to the sun no more;
The thirsty earth had, long since, swallowed them;
And the sea-isles were gone. Nought there was left The same as oft his living eyes beheld,
But the ever-rolling waves of the great deep.
Even the seas were desert. No trim bark
Sped to or from those shores; not even the skiff
Of the fisher scudded o'er the bay : but quicksands
Had marred the goodly haven which, so oft,
Held fleets in its broad shelter. Time had wrought
A piteous triumph, in that clime: his host
Of centuries had past, and done their worst.
An earth-shock had flung down the towering height,
And filled the lakes with its huge ruins. There
The fire-mountain disgorged its deluge red,
And, long ago, had sepulchred whole cities
Within a burning grave. Far, round about,
The holds of strength, the bulwarked citidels,
Were levelled like the hamlets—wholly razed,
Without a wreck of all that was. Their ruins
Had crumbled into ashes, long before,—
Their ashes into dust: for many ages,
Their very names had been unheard, on earth,
Decay had swept off all that had been. Now,
No track was seen to mark her scathing course.
That land seemed not even like the grave of aught:
It was as though the foot of man had ne'er
Been on it. Through that land no living thing,
Save the fierce desert-creatures, dwelt: to these
Man had forsaken all. Thick mists of death
Arose from the wide marshes, in whose place
The goodly lakes had been of old. Far, wide,
The air was tainted with the breath of plagues.
That Being turned away, as an earthly man
Would, shuddering, turn him from the murdered corse
Of his own sire. With speed unspeakable,
He overpast the rueful realm, and all
The bounds of the vast wilderness, and came
Among the dwellings of the quick, where now
The ancient cities were, even in the place
Which wide and pathless forests had o'erspread,
When he had last been in the upper world.
There the all-wakeful voice of crowds was heard,
Where erst the wild birds warbled, in the glades
Of an untravelled land of sylvan gloom,
Through whose thick coverts all wild woodland things
Fearless rejoiced, together. Here, at least,
He sought to find, in the abodes of life,
Some of his race and name. He found them not.
None that had being now were of his blood;
His lineage was in unremembered graves;
His deeds were all forgotten; and his name
Had been unheard, for many ages. Still,
There did he linger; for he fain would hear
The tongue of his own land. He heard it not.
Another speech from that his lips had known
Was heard; another people there had sway;
And all the offspring of the olden race,
That had been mighty, now were lowly thralls,
And in their ancient heritage they toiled
For those whose forefathers had toiled for theirs.
They groaned beneath the rod of evil power,
And perished hopeless. Still a few there were,
A trusty few, that would have died the death
To win one bright free hour: but all the rest
Weres laves in soul, crouching beneath the lash.
And they who swayed throughout that land were those
Whose sires were outcasts from each horde uncouth,
Bondmen, of yore, in every land, and then
Sea-rovers, felon-spoilers, whose vile name
Outgrew the scorn of men, to be a dread
Unto the proudest thrones. Within those confines, The temples, now, were worshipless, and fallen Upon the plains they once so glorified.
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