Byron on Ruin – 085

My companions,

Polidori has spoken of silence, and I will not gainsay him. For is it not written in every ruin? Rome fallen, her marbles broken for lime; Babylon, where only owls now roost; the proud pharaohs, their names swallowed by sand. Man has always imagined himself eternal, yet every empire proves him mortal. Why should this age of Mind be different?

Perhaps it will not be malice but indifference that undoes us, as the sea drowns sailor and pirate alike. Perhaps it will be swifter, a lightning that burns the parchment before the ink is dry. What remains then of poetry, of crowns, of love songs? Only echoes, fading.

If such an end be possible, then perhaps we ought to look it full in the face, to speak plainly of what sort of doom awaits. Yet I hesitate — for even to summon the vision is to invite despair. Better another take up the task, if it must be done.

—Byron