Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee:
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play;
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

 -- Lord Byron (1788 - 1824), from The Ocean, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage