For such a numerous host — Ruins

"She [the Roman Catholic Church] may still exist in undiminished vigour, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Pauls."

"I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desart [sic]. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

"History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust?"

"Ruins of Ind! Here, too, with busy hand, Hath man built shrines, and gorgeous cities plannd, That Time may mock his toil?—and must he still For weeds and reptiles ply his plastic skill?"

"We wonder — and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place."

"Behold this ruin! Twas a skull Once of ethereal spirit full! This narrow cell was Lifes retreat; This place was Thoughts mysterious seat! What beauteous pictures filld that spot, What dreams of pleasure, long forgot! Nor Love, nor Joy, nor Hope, nor Fear, Has left one trace, one record here."