| Cities and Thrones and Powers |
| Stand in Time’s eye, |
| Almost as long as flowers, |
| Which daily die: |
| But, as new buds put forth |
| To glad new men, |
| Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth |
| The Cities rise again. |
| |
| This season’s Daffodil, |
| She never hears |
| What change, what chance, what chill, |
| Cut down last year’s; |
| But with bold countenance, |
| And knowledge small, |
| Esteems her seven days’ continuance |
| To be perpetual. |
| |
| So Time that is o’er-kind |
| To all that be, |
| ’en as blind, |
| As bold as she: |
|
| And burial sure, |
| Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith, |
| «See how our works endure!» |