THE names that slow oblivion have defied, And passionate ambition's wildest shocks Stand in lone grandeur, like eternal rocks, To cast broad shadows o'er the silent tide Of time's unebbing flood, whose waters glide To ponderous darkness from their secret spring And, bearing on each transitory thing, Leave those old monuments in loneliest pride. There stand they -- fortresses uprear'd by man, Whose earthly frame is mortal; symbols high Of power unchanging, -- thought that cannot die; Proofs that our nature is not of a span, But of immortal essence, and allied To life and joy and love unperishing. |