She has grown pale and spectral with our wounds
And she is worn with memories of woe
Older than Karnak. Multitudinous feet
Of all the phantom armies of the world
Resounding down the hollow halls of time,
Have kept their far-off rumor in her ear.
For she was old when Nineveh and Tyre
And Baalbec of the waste went down in blood;
Pompey and Tamburlaine and Genghis Khan
Are dreams of only yesternight to her.
And still she keeps, chained to a loathsome thing,
Her straining, distant paces up and down
The vaulted cell, but wistful of an end
When all our swarm of shuddering life shall drop
Like some dead cooling cinder down the void,
Leaving her clean, in blessed barrenness.
( August, 1914)