Read "The Roman Gravemounds" by Thomas Hardy online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
BY Rome's dim relics there walks a man, / Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade; / I guess what impels him to scrape and scan; / Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.
"Vast was Rome," he must muse, "in the world's regard, / Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be; " / And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard / Left by those who are held in such memory.