 | The Vision of Prophecy and Other Poems |  |
209
RUINS OF CARTEIA,
A PHŒNICIAN CITY NEAR GIBRALTAR, SUPPOSED TO BE THE ANCIENT TARSHISH.
A lonely grange that crests a gentle hill,Upon the margin of a bright blue bay,
Some stone-heaps, strewn like grave-mounds by the way,
Are all that keep thy site in memory still,
Proud daughter of proud Tyre! Her wealth and skill
Adorned thee for the Roman's sterner sway;
But now on both, alike in your decay,
The careless fisher spreads his nets at will.
Yet far less sad to me this silent scene
That such a life as lingers still beneath
The stately towers where Rome once sat as queen,—
The mask without the spark of vital breath,—
The spirit rusted, like a blade once keen,
And some dim gilding left upon the sheath.
| The Vision of Prophecy and Other Poems | |