The Chimera

O, who will slay the last chimera, Time? Though Love and Death have many a cunning dart— In spite of these, and close-wrought webs of Art, And Slumber, with a slow, Lethean lime— Still, still he lives; and though thy feet attain The lunar peaks of ice and crystal, he, Some night of agonized eternity With brazen teeth shall gnaw thy fettered brain. Gorged with the dust of thrones and fanes destroyed— With lidless eyes like moons of adamant, And vaulted mouth emportalling the void, He crouches like a passive sphinx before Some temple-gate, or grinning, moves to grant Thine entrance at the monarch's golden door.