Classic Poem

The crash of empires echoed in his ears,
The shouts and curses of the ravening horde;
Flashed in his eyes the horror of the sword,
The blight that gnaws and spreads, the fire that sears;
And dimly through a mist of hopeless tears
He saw the old heroic blood outpoured,
A flood of ruin, swift and deep and broad,
That whelmed the glories of a thousand years.

And even as the darkness darker grows,
And nearer yet the tempest looms and lowers,
Lo! where afar a strange new splendour shows
Through storm and darkness softly glimmering;
The shining bulwarks, the eternal towers,
The courts divine, the palace of the King.