Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Cave of Elephanta
By Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838)W
Gloomy as night, inscrutable as fate,
Altars no more divine, and shrines which know
Nor priests, nor votaries, nor sacrifice;
The stranger’s wonder all their worship now.
And yet coeval as the naked rock
Seem they with mother earth,—immutable;
Time, tempest, warfare, ordinary decay
Is not for these. The memory of man
Has lost their rise, although they are his work.
Two senses here are present,—one of power,
And one of nothingness; doth it not mock
The mighty mind to see the meaner part,
The task it taught its hands, outlast itself?
The temple was a type, a thing of stone
Built by laborious days which made up years;
The creed which hallowed it was of the soul;
And yet the creed hath passed,—the temple stands.