Inscribed Upon a Rock

II

Inscribed upon a rock

Pause, Traveller! whosoe’er thou be
Whom chance may lead to this retreat,
Where silence yields reluctantly
Even to the fleecy straggler’s bleat;

Give voice to what my hand shall trace,
And fear not lest an idle sound
Of words unsuited to the place,
Disturb its solitude profound.

I saw this Rock, while vernal air
Blew softly o’er the russet heath,
Uphold a Monument as fair
As Church or Abbey furnisheth.

Unsullied did it meet the day,
Like marble white, like ether pure;
As if beneath some hero lay,
Honour’d with costliest sepulture.

My fancy kindled as I gazed;
And, ever as the sun shone forth,
The flatter’d structure glisten’d, blazed,
And seemed the proudest thing on earth.

But Frost had reared the gorgeous Pile
Unsound as those which fortune builds;
To undermine with secret guile,
Sapp’d by the very beam that gilds.

And, while I gazed, with sudden shock
Fell the whole Fabric to the ground;
And naked left this dripping Rock,
With shapeless ruin spread around!