There sleep came easy for the drone of bees
Thronging about cottage gardens heaped with flowers;
In love of sunlit goodliness of days
There richly flowed their lives in settled hours —
But that was long ago,
And now no more they sing, nor reap, nor sow;
And I perforce in many a town about this isle
Unsettled wanderer have dwelt awhile.
Wars of great kings and clash of armouries,
Whose swords no man could tell, whose spears
Were numerous as a wheatfield’s ears,
Rolled over all the Great Lands; and the Seas
Were loud with navies; their devouring fires
Behind the armies burned both fields and towns;
And sacked and crumbled or to flaming pyres
Were cities made, where treasuries and crowns,
Kings and their folk, their wives and tender maids
Were all consumed. Now silent are those courts,
Ruined the towers, whose old shape slowly fades,
And no feet pass beneath their broken ports.