HISTORY

Here, peradventure, in this mirror glassed,

Who gazes long and well at times beholds

Some sunken feature of the mummied Past,

But oftener only the embroidered folds

And soiled magnificence of her rent robe

Whose tattered skirts are ruined dynasties

That sweep the dust of æons in our eyes

And with their trailing pride cumber the globe.—

For lo! the high, imperial Past is dead:

The air is full of its dissolvèd bones;

Invincible armies long since vanquishèd,

Kings that remember not their awful thrones,

Powerless potentates and foolish sages,

Impede the slow steps of the pompous ages.