Classic Poem

Transience

What does not fade? The tower that long had stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o'er its base.
And flinty pyramids, and walls of brass,
Descend: the Babylonian spires are sunk;
Achaia, Rome and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old;
And all those worlds that roll around the sun,
The sun himself, shall die; and ancient Night
Again involve the desolate abyss:
Till the great Father through the lifeless gloom
Extend his arm to light another world,
And bid new planets roll by other laws.
For through the regions of unbounded space,
Where unconfined Omnipotence has room,
Being, in various systems, fluctuates still
Between creation and abhorred decay:
It ever did; perhaps and ever will.
New worlds are still emerging from the deep;
The old descending, in their turns to rise.