II.—The Eiffel Tower.
The men who builded Babel, day by day1
Saw the great city less, the plains more wide,2
Till God sent down confusion for their pride,3
And tower and trench sank back to common clay.4
Nor better fared the men who far away5
Beheld their harbour giant o’er the tide,6
For lo ! earth trembled, and the people cried,7
And Rhodes’ Colossus crashed into the bay.8
But this transcendent tower of magic birth,9
That tames the lightning-flash and mocks the thunder,10
Has set a star in Heaven,—with upturned eyes11
The nations meet, and pass in marvel under,12
And humbled, in the silence of surprise13
They find a long-lost language of the earth.14