'Cities and Thrones and Powers'
Kipling, Rudyard (1865-1936)

  Cities and Thrones and Powers
    Stand in Time's eye,
  Almost as long as flowers,
    Which daily die:
  But, as new buds put forth
    To glad new men,
  Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
    The Cities rise again.

  This season's Daffodil
    She never hears
  What change, what chance, what chill,
    Cut down last year's;
  But with bold countenance,
    And knowledge small,
  Esteems her seven days' continuance
    To be perpetual.

  So Time that is o'erkind
    To all that be,
  Ordains us e'en as blind,
    As bold as she:
  That in our very death,
    And burial sure,
  Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
    'See how our works endure!'
   

---

The New Oxford Book of English Verse (Gardner)