The blind snake crawls along the walls
Of tower and turret ages buried;
The ground swell laps within the gaps
Of the long rampart rough and serried.
There clings white brine upon the shrine
Within the temple's wave-worn glory,
And white things creep in slime, and sleep
Upon the tablet's graven story.
Soft silence reigns in those domains
Where once the trumpet rang so loudly;
And pallid gleams of phosphor beams
Glow where the sun once glittered proudly.
Oh! love, they lie beneath no sky,
Who fell by field and hill and river--
The wild seas roll from pole to pole,
And surfs above them boom forever.
