Ah! what avails it, Genoa, now to thee That Doria, feared by monarchs, once was thine? Univied ruin! in thy sad decline From virtuous greatness, what avails that he Whose prow descended first the Hesperian sea, And gave our world her mate beyond the brine, Was nurtured, whilst an infant, at thy knee?— All things must perish,—all but things divine. Flowers, and the stars, and virtue,—these alone, The self-subsisting shapes, or self-renewing, Survive. All else are sentenced. Wisest were That builder who should plan with strictest care (Ere yet the wood was felled or hewn the stone) The aspect only of his pile in ruin!

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Ah! what avails it, Genoa, now to thee That Doria, feared by monarchs, once was thine? Univied ruin! in thy sad decline From virtuous greatness, what avails that he Whose prow descended first the Hesperian sea, And gave our world her mate beyond the brine, Was nurtured, whilst an infant, at thy knee?— All things must perish,—all but things divine. Flowers, and the stars, and virtue,—these alone, The self-subsisting shapes, or self-renewing, Survive. All else are sentenced. Wisest were That builder who should plan with strictest care (Ere yet the wood was felled or hewn the stone) The aspect only of his pile in ruin!" in the context of "Aubrey Thomas de Vere, "Genoa", in Poems (1855), p. 162" to mean that wisdom is timeless.