O, who will slay the last chimaera, Time?

Though Love and Death have many a cunning dart—

Despite of these, and close-wrought webs of Art,

And Slumber, with a slow Lethean lime—

Still, still, he lives; and though thy feet attain

The lunar peaks of ice and crystal, he,

Some night of agonized eternity

With brazen teeth shall gnaw thy fretted brain.

Gorged with the dust of thrones and fanes destroyed—

With lidless eyes like moons of adamant,

And vaulted mouth emportalling the void,

He crouches like a passive sphinx before

Some temple gate, or, grinning, moves to grant

Thine entrance at the monarch’s golden door.