Classic Poem

I have hung my misty ivy over all
The pomps of antique Rome, and the gray blight
Of my grim touch upon the Rhine doth smite
Full many a haughty burg and crumbling wall.

In ways severe, implacable, I fall
Where colonnaded Parthenons rise white
Into the nimbus of the soft Greek light,
Or where proud Baalbec's dismal shades appall.

Oh, morbid joy have I, when towns of towers,
And insolent Karnacs, by grave sphinxes girt,
Perish before my dark, destructive powers.
And I am glad to view, with eyes alert,
The mute magnificence of their leafless bowers,
Their glory shattered in palatial dirt!