Love Among The Ruins

I.     Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,     Miles and miles     On the solitary pastures where our sheep     Half-asleep     Tinkle homeward thro the twilight, stray or stop     As they crop. II.     Was the site once of a city great and gay,     (So they say)     Of our countrys very capital, its prince     Ages since     Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far     Peace or war. III.     Now, the country does not even boast a tree,     As you see,     To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills     From the hills     Intersect and give a name to, (else they run     Into one) IV.     Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires     Up like fires     Oer the hundred-gated circuit of a wall     Bounding all     Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest     Twelve abreast. V.     And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass     Never was!     Such a carpet as, this summer-time, oer-spreads     And embeds     Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,     Stock or stone. VI.     Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe     Long ago;     Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame     Struck them tame;     And that glory and that shame alike, the gold     Bought and sold. VII.     Now, the single little turret that remains     On the plains,     By the caper overrooted, by the gourd     Overscored,     While the patching houseleeks head of blossom winks     Through the chinks. VIII.     Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time     Sprang sublime,     And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced     As they raced,     And the monarch and his minions and his dames     Viewed the games. IX.     And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve     Smiles to leave     To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece     In such peace,     And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey     Melt away. X.     That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair     Waits me there     In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul     For the goal,     When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb     Till I come. XI.     But he looked upon the city, every side,     Far and wide,     All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades     Colonnades,     All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, and then     All the men! XII.     When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,     Either hand     On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace     Of my face,     Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech     Each on each. XIII.     In one year they sent a million fighters forth     South and North,     And they built their gods a brazen pillar high     As the sky     Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force,     Gold, of course. XIV.     O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!     Earths returns     For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!     Shut them in,     With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!     Love is best.