At Samaria

We climbed the hill wherefrom Samaria's crown
In marble majesty once looked away
Toward Hermon, white beneath the Syrian day;
And lo, no vestige of the old renown,
Save a long colonnade, bescarred and brown,
Remained to tell of Herod's regal sway, —
The gold, the gauds, the imperial display,
He heaped on Judah's erewhile princely town.

Ruin was riotous; decay was king;
An olive root engripped the topmost stone
As though it clutched and crushed the thing called fame;
Seemed as a fragile wind-flower petal, blown
Into the void, the past's vain glorying,
And Herod but the shadow of a name!