Classic Poem

C AMEST thou from the desert or the sea,
Slow-raining sand, whose lapse of gleaming brown
Stealeth the glassy horologe adown,
Arraying Time with visibility?
Helpmate in either hath he had in thee,
Tombing the pride of temple or of town,
Or withering with salt waste the herbless down,
As willed the varying wind's inconstancy.
Thou, joyless load on earth for ever laid,
Yet plaything of all breezes as they pass,
Recordest here what thou depictest well: —
The thing like thee of streaming atoms made,
Singly a nothing, measureless in mass,
Mutation all, and yet unalterable!