182 NOTES OF MR. BUCKINGHAM'S LECTURES. 



And save that lone and shrivelled tree 

 There's nought of life appears, 



It's sullen moaning seems to me 

 The voice of other years. 



It comes to tell how brief, how vain, 



Are riches, power and fame ; 

 All , all that graced proud Ashur's reign 



Is vanished save the name. 



Where now the warrior clad in mail, 

 That danced at Beauty's side ? 



The minstrel that could weave a tale, 

 To calm the soul of pride ? 



Those famed retreats from regal care 

 Are whelmed 'neath Ruin's sway, 



Where Shinar's queen and maidens fair 

 Were wont at eve to stray. 



It sighs again a moral bears 



To tell how brief the span, 

 That bounds the loves the hopes the fears 



The joys the griefs of man. 



Here too some future pilgrim's feet 

 May tread the desert ground ; 



And where a thousand hearts now beat, 

 No living thing be found. 



And here mayhap some leafless trees 



Will mark the fated spot 

 And whisper in the passing breeze 

 It was, but now is not. " 



Dundtc. 



