{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-glory-of-ruins",
 "title": "The Glory of Ruins",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished",
 "book_slug": "poems-now-first-collected",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 8,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1911 first collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from and the first to give the poem a title, not necessarily the poem's first appearance: the volume's own title page describes it as now first collected and revised, and eleven of these twelve poems had already been printed untitled in Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land (1908).",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 65,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The lizard rested on the rock while I sat among the ruins,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the pride of man was like a vision of the night.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lo, the lords of the city have disappeared into darkness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ancient wilderness hath swallowed up all their work.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There is nothing left of the city but a heap of fragments;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bones of a vessel broken by the storm.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Behold the waves of the desert wait hungrily for man’s dwellings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the tides of desolation return upon his toil.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All that he hath painfully built up is shaken down in a moment,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The memory of his glory is buried beneath the billows of sand.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then a voice said, Look again upon the ruins,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These broken arches have taught generations to build.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Moreover the name of this city shall be remembered,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For here a poor man spoke a word that shall not die.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This is the glory that is stronger than the desert;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God hath given eternity to the thought of man.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}