In ruin are the spacious, splendid halls
⁠With frozen forest of white columns where
The Tartar Khan his palace builded fair,
⁠Where loneliest the shrilling cricket calls.
The ivy blackens over shining walls
⁠Enscribing in gigantic letters there
Some curse Belshazzar-like: Beware! Beware!—
⁠Then black as crêpe from crested columns falls.

Within the burnished banquet room there sings
⁠The fountain of the harem pure and clear,
Just as of old it sang in twilights drear.
⁠But whither love and fame speed—on what wings?
When all things else must perish these endure!
⁠Yet both are gone! The fountain ripples pure.