Full twenty years and still I seem to stand,
As then, aloft in the tall tower-tomb
So far within the expanse of Syrian sand,
Alone, where long long ages in the gloom
Of yon stone shelves a human dust hath lain,
That once breathed, brooded, dared, hoped, hated, loved!
Awhile o'erwept, and worshipped with fond pain,
How stealthily the memory removed
From hearts who dreamed that never it could wane!
Later, the men who built the tomb dispersed,
Their conquerors were heedless of the dead;
Race following race, remembrance of the first,
Like some fair pageant of the cloud, is fled;
They, and the memory of them all erased,
Faint characters an idle mood hath traced
In sands of yonder ever-wandering waste.
The shelves are void an alien spoiler soon
The dear embalmed remains hath lightly strewn
Upon these raving winds that roam the wild,
For ever to be scattered, whirled, or piled
With dust that loved, scorned, knew not that they were,
For ever to be heaped, and hounded there,
In amicable rest, or rivalry
With never-animate dust of the dun sea …
… Anarchic spirits of the desert blast
Celebrate all the ruin of the past!
Shadowy Murder's dismal dialogue,
Conspiring, ere she leap to disembogue
Annihilating vials on my head,
Who dare to stand alive among the dead.
Carousals, wails from hollowhearts resound,
Long agony of maniac souls around,
Low moaning, shrieking, fading in a swound,
Thundering exultant through the rifted tomb,
And bearing down my heart with swoop of doom;
"Cease! cease from trouble! hope thou, or despair;
"Wait but a little, thou too shalt be there!"