WE climbed the hill where from Samaria's crown In marble majesty once looked away Toward Hermon, white beneath the Syrian day; And lo, no vestige of the old renown. Save a long colonnade bescarred and brown, Remained to tell of Herod's regal sway, The gold, the gauds, the imperial display, He heaped on Judah's erewhile princely town. Ruin was riotous; decay was king; An olive -root engript the topmost stone As tho it clutched and crusht the thing called fame; Seemed as a fragile wind-flower petal blown Into the void, the past's vain glorying, And Herod but the shadow of a name! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DINING-ROOM TEA by RUPERT BROOKE BOOKER T. WASHINGTON by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR UPON BEN JONSON [JOHNSON] by ROBERT HERRICK ODE 13. ON THE CHARMS OF PEACE by BACCHYLIDES SONNET: 18 by RICHARD BARNFIELD |