"Cities and Thrones and Powers"

by Rudyard Kipling
(Prelude to 'Puck of Pook s Hill')
CITIES and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time s eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth,
The Cities rise again.

This season s Daffodil,
She never hears,
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year s;
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days continuance
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
'See how our works endure!'