Bleached white pillars and arches
Standing bent and crumbling,
Alone in the calm March
Breezes. Reaching, fumbling

To grasp that jewel tumbling
From east to west each day.
Hollow husks left mumbling
About the dream and ray

Of hope. The scripted play
Preserved, but not to swell.
Merely now to display
How it reigned; how it fell.

All those great minds, loved well,
What lasts of them after?
With every weed, a knell,
Worming through cracked plaster,

The remains sink faster
In the minds of the youth.
We are not time's master
For man fast bores of truth.