Emperors Come and Go

Stately halls and palace gardens
Elegant and richly rayed
The pleasant singing of sweet fountains
Echoing, cool colonnades

Not since the mighty mountains hardened
Grew such lofty gilded spires
City walls like cliffs of diamond
Shining down on paradise . . .

Emperors come and go,
Kingdoms decay and laurels may wither and die;
Over a bridge of snow
Melting in warm spring weather, oh whither go I?
Below me life's river is fleeting
Its patterns of ripples repeating
That Emperors come and go
Kingdoms decay and laurels may wither and die.