Cities and Thrones and Powers,

Stand in Time’s eye,

Almost as long as flowers,

4

Which daily die:

But, as new buds put forth,

To glad new men,

Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,

8

The Cities rise again.

This season’s Daffodil,

She never hears

What change, what chance, what chill,

12

Cut down last year’s:

But with bold countenance,

And knowledge small,

Esteems her seven days’ continuance

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To be perpetual.

So time that is o’er kind,

To all that be,

Ordains us e’en as blind,

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As bold as she:

That in our very death,

And burial sure,

Shadow to shadow, well-persuaded, saith,

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"See how our works endure!"