A Song of Sidon

Her pageantry parted from her, she sits by the sobbing sea
Begirt by the green of gardens where the bloom of the citron tree
Attars the too-brief twilight with its heavy spicery.

Never the great-oared galleys ride in from the ocean's rim,
Laden with store of treasure from the utmost isles and dim;
Never the homing sailors lift skyward the thankful hymn.

Never the morning's splendor strikes slant upon crowded quays;
Never the blaze of noontide to gold burns the marble frieze;
Never the planet of lovers lights the rose-twined balconies.

Never from outland places do the strange-faced merchants fare,
And fill with their curious chaffer the girth of the market-square,
Envying Sidon's riches that once were the world's despair.

No more do the maids at midnight to the rapt Astarte raise,
Through the noiseless plash of the moonshine, their paean of prayer and praise;
No more do the youths to Thammuz vow worship all their days.

Aye, perished the pillared places, the towering and templed heights,
The garlanded sacrifices, and the old tumultuous rites,
The revel of wine and music through the passionate pagan nights!

Once she was queen of cities, though now but a memory,—
A wraith of the time departed through all of the time to be,—
Sitting sad in her fallen splendor by the bright Sidonian sea.