The city, extending all
over Mount Sion, was encompassed with a wall of white marble, with
battlements of gold; a gorgeous mass of gates and pillars, and gardened
terraces; lofty piles of rarest materials, cedar, and ivory, and
precious stones; and costly columns of the richest workmanship and the
most fanciful orders, capitals of the lotus and the palm, and flowing
friezes of the olive and the vine.
And in the front a mighty Temple rose, with inspiration in its very
form; a Temple so vast, so sumptuous, that there needed no priest to
tell us that no human hand planned that sublime magnificence!
'God of my fathers!' said Alroy, 'I am a poor, weak thing, and my life
has been a life of dreams and visions, and I have sometimes thought my
brain lacked a sufficient master; where am I? Do I sleep or live? Am I a
slumberer or a ghost? This trial is too much.' He sank down, and hid
his face in his hands: his over-exerted mind appeared to desert him: he
wept.
Many minutes elapsed before Alroy grew composed. His wild bursts of
weeping sank into sobs, and the sobs died off into sighs. And at length,
calm from exhaustion, he again looked up, and lo! the glorious city was
no more! Before him was a moon-lit plain, over which the avenue of
lions still advanced, and appeared to terminate only in the mountainous
distance.
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