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| WITH minarets of marble rising stately from a sea | |
| Of the dark-leaved mango’s foliage streaked by the jaman tree, | |
| Up to the empyrean where the crescent glitters bright, | |
| Calm and unchanged still shining through the fall of Moslem might, | |
| One majesty of whiteness the Taj of Agra stands, | 5 |
| Like no work of human builder, but a care of angel hands. | |
| Look down the entrance vista through the lofty sandstone door; | |
| How near it seems, though distant five hundred yards or more. | |
| So down the shadowy vista of twice one hundred years | |
| The past becomes the present, and the distant near appears, | 10 |
| And in a vision rises before the raptured eye | |
| The splendor of the monarch who ruled in days gone by, | |
| When ’neath the shade of snow-white domes, with pinnacles of gold, | |
| In royal state, surrounded by pomp and wealth untold, | |
| He sat dispensing justice, or discussed affairs of weight, | 15 |
| With councillors and princes of many a subject state; | |
| Or when summoned to the conflict with a vast array he spurred, | |
| To wreak upon Golconda the vengeance long deferred. | |
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| But see!—the sinking sun the fort in strong relief has brought, | |
| Whose lengthening shadow forward creeps, as though it fondly thought | 20 |
| To reach the Taj and converse hold of glories passed away, | |
| To hear the deeds of Shah Jahan and tell of Akbar’s sway. | |
| But the cruel sun in sinking turns the shadow from its goal, | |
| And between, a bar forever, the Jumna’s waters roll; | |
| And as the light grows fainter, and clouds lose their golden rim, | 25 |
| The vision also changes, and its glory waxes dim. | |
| The mighty realm is torn by strife, the notes of war resound; | |
| Disgraced, deposed by filial hands, the monarch stands uncrowned! | |
| His servants fled, for none were found of all the craven band | |
| For the beleaguered sovereign in peril firm to stand! | 30 |
| “Ere death call no man happy, lest the future evil bring,” | |
| Such the moral history teaches to the peasant and the king. | |
| But though the sovereign’s sunset days were clouded o’er by ill, | |
| A token of his glory,—the Taj stands firmly still. | |
| Majestic shrine of other days, to thee the power belongs | 35 |
| To resist the flight of ages and to awe the stranger-throng; | |
| Long as the sacred Jumna o’er its bed of sand shall flow, | |
| Thy glorious dome to heaven shall raise its massive breast of snow, | |
| For the spirit of the monarch and the builder’s art combine | |
| To guard from lightning’s levin-bolt, and time’s decay, the shrine. | 40 |
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