And even to the
current summer there has come down tradition of a hoary-headed
master of all art, who once filled every field and grove with
statues and god-like architecture, of every design which Greece
has lately copied; whose ruins are now mingled with the dust, and
not one block remains upon another. The century sun and
unwearied rain have wasted them, till not one fragment from that
quarry now exists; and poets perchance will feign that gods sent
down the material from heaven.
What though the traveller tell us of the ruins of Egypt, are we
so sick or idle, that we must sacrifice our America and to-day to
some man's ill-remembered and indolent story? Carnac and Luxor
are but names, or if their skeletons remain, still more desert
sand, and at length a wave of the Mediterranean Sea are needed to
wash away the filth that attaches to their grandeur. Carnac!
Carnac! here is Carnac for me. I behold the columns of a larger
and purer temple.
This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome
Shelters the measuring art and measurer's home.
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