University of Virginia Library

XXXI

It held one structure grand and moss'd,
Mighty as any castle sung,
And old when oldest Ind was young,
With threshold Christian never crossed;
A temple builded to the sun,
Along whose somber altar-stone
Brown, bleeding virgins had been strown
Like leaves, when leaves are crisp and dun,
In ages ere the Sphynx was born,
Or Babylon knew night, or morn.