Classic Poem

Behold me — a shadow!
The shadow of an ancient laughing thing!

Fallen columns disintegrated with time;
Sacred mounds insulted with the growth of scornful weeds;
Shattered arches haunted by the lizard and the snake:
This is my Babylon — the Babylon I built and feasted in!

O, but the wantonness of my Babylon!
The princely prodigality of my Babylon!
This was the throne — I sat upon it.
I sat upon it and feasted mine ears with the haughty trumpets,
Mine eyes with the scarlet and purple.

And once in this long fallow garden a lily grew:
It was my lily — it grew for me.
Weeds grow there now — they grow for me.
They grow there now and flaunt their ragged coats in the sun —
Ruffians and shameless!
If I weep above my fallen lily, will it grow?

The lizard flees from me and the snake hisses.
And I am lonesome — lonesome in my Babylon.

How shall I pile up again the kingly walls?
I cry out: my voice is as the yell of a jackal — impotent.
The Wind dances with the Dust across my tessellated courtyards;
The Wind and the Dust — their music is a threnody.

How can I rebuild my Babylon?
How conjure back the magic of the olden time?
How can I rebuild my dust heaps into a city —
The City of My Ancient Dream?