History

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Title:     History
Author: William Watson [More Titles by Watson]

Here, peradventure, in this mirror glassed,
Who gazes long and well at times beholds
Some sunken feature of the mummied Past,
But oftener only the embroidered folds
And soiled magnificence of her rent robe
Whose tattered skirts are ruined dynasties
That sweep the dust of aeons in our eyes
And with their trailing pride cumber the globe.--
For lo! the high, imperial Past is dead:
The air is full of its dissolved bones;
Invincible armies long since vanquished,
Kings that remember not their awful thrones,
Powerless potentates and foolish sages,
Impede the slow steps of the pompous ages.

[The end]
William Watson's poem: History

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