TRANSFIGURATION

What old historic dust gives back the rose!

What crumbled empires yield the creeping vine!

And purple grapes have sucked a pleasant wine

From ramparts that had bowed to sudden blows.

Where now the unregarded river flows,

Old dissolute cities, their debauches done,

Lift up a slender blossom to the sun,

Steeped in the thoughtful silence where it grows.

Where Splendour was, no Splendour is today:

Ruin has wrought upon the crowns of kings,

Their throne-rooms all are green and tender things...

And wonder dies,— save in the patient way

Of these slow transmutations in the dust:

Beauty from power, lilies out of lust.