For the other, we fashion a heaven of late reward;
His life, all dark, and desolate, and hard,
Down to oblivion goes—
Unless some great God knows!
THE WORLD'S END
Once wandering far in Asia, lo, we came
Unto a valley falling toward the east;
Naked its sides as if a spreading flame
Had swept all bare; devouring, in mad feast,
Forest and herb, all beasts and singing choirs.
With ardent colors were the vast hills strewn,
Glowing like unquenched embers of great fires;
Then sank the red sun, rose immense the moon.
So builded were those walls, so leaned the earth,—
With slow, unnatural, and awful trend,—
It seemed, at last, in this strange land of dearth,
Even just beyond, the solid world had end—
And, moving on, our vision might take flight
Into that pit whence issue day and night.
SHELLEY'S "OZYMANDIAS"
This timeless river—oldest of all time,
These desolate mountains, deserts stretching vast;
These pyramids and temples; this domain
Of tombs; and empty shadows of the dead,
And mockery of old fame;—here day and night
I wander, not alone, nor with sad heart:
One line of Shelley singing in my soul.
