The Coorong's Chinese Inn

So this is where they were!
This stretch of grass and sand,
the tracks half covered now
and hard to find,
and rows of stones
that once were walls -
and that,
is that the well?

Is this how Shelley felt
in writing of that grander scene?

How hard they worked!
In this poor patch were onions grown?
See, some of them survive;
remains of food
to stock a vanished Inn.

No wealth for toil rewarded them;
and so the Inn was closed,
it's walls knocked down
to pilfer rock for building
other castles in the air.

Look on these works and marvel,
and despair.