Classic Poem

Oblivion like perfume from the wings
Of dim Osiris, and the calm of one
High soul, who thy remorseless lips of stone
Chiselled to mock the resonance of kings.
Thy proper silence, ripe with legend, clings
To thine inert omnipotence, endures
Though Gods and empires agonize, and lures
Strange lapses from life's echoing, brazen strings.
Thou seest new stars swing downward through the gloom,
While on her dust, who smiled and ravished Rome,
Decays the graven marble of her tomb.
The fruitful Nile, the desert in thine eyes —
Dead laughter, and dead tears — How much to come? —
Death, death, and fragile life that weeps and dies.