Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.
III. A Vision of Old BabylonEdmund Ollier (1827–1886)
O
I floated on the backward waves of Time,
Until I landed in that antique age
When the now hoary world was in its prime.
How young, and fresh, and green, all things did look!
I stood upon a broad and grassy plain,
Shrouded with leaves, between which, like a brook
Dashed on the turf in showers of golden rain,
The broken sunlight mottled all the land;
And soon, between the trees, I was aware
Of a vast city, girt with stony band,
That hung upon the burning blue-bright air,
Like snowy clouds which that strange architect,
The Wind, has with his wayward fancies decked.