THESE umbered cliffs and gnarls of masonry Outskeleton Time's central city, Rome; Whereof each arch, entablature, and dome Lies bare in all its gaunt anatomy. And cracking frieze and rotten metope Express, as though they were an open tome Top-lined with caustic monitory gnome; 'Dunces, Learn here to spell Humanity!' And yet within these ruins' very shade The singing workmen shape and set and join Their frail new mansion's stuccoed cove and quoin With no apparent sense that years abrade, Though each rent wall their feeble works invade Once shamed all such in power of pier and groin. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SISTER LOU by STERLING ALLEN BROWN TO MARY IN HEAVEN by ROBERT BURNS LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER by THOMAS CAMPBELL ARIZONA POEMS: 2. MEXICAN QUARTER by JOHN GOULD FLETCHER SONNET: 102 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH AT THE PLAYERS by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH TO CHILDREN: 3. THE GOLDEN DAY by WILLIAM ROSE BENET IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: MITIGATIONS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |