Time Passes

There was nought in the Valley      But a Tower of Ivory, Its base enwreathed with red      Flowers that at evening      Caught the sun's crimson As to Ocean low he sped.      Lucent and lovely      It stood in the morning Under a trackless hill;      With snows eternal      Muffling its summit, And silence ineffable.      Sighing of solitude      Winds from the cold heights Haunted its yellowing stone;      At noon its shadow      Stretched athwart cedars Whence every bird was flown.      Its stair was broken,      Its starlit walls were Fretted; its flowers shone      Wide at the portal,      Full-blown and fading, Their last faint fragrance gone.      And on high in its lantern      A shape of the living Watched o'er a shoreless sea,      From a Tower rotting      With age and weakness, Once lovely as ivory.