| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Empires | | By Francis Burdett Money-Coutts (1852–1923) |
| | | HOW dare we deem that in this age | |
| The end of all the ages lurks? | |
| That God is printing the last page | |
| Of the last volume of his Works? | |
| |
| Have we not canted of the mills | 5 |
| Of God, how very slow they grind? | |
| Why should we fancy on our hills | |
| Their sails are sped by earthly wind? | |
| |
| Persia and Egypt, Greece and Rome, | |
| And vaster dynasties before, | 10 |
| Now faded in Time’s monochrome, | |
| In what do we surpass their lore? | |
| |
| Some things they knew that we know not; | |
| Some things we know by them unknown; | |
| But the axles of their wheels were hot | 15 |
| With the same frenzies as our own. | | | | |
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