The Balance

The world upheld their pillars for a while -

Now, where imperial On and Memphis stood,

The hot wind sifts across the solitude

The sand that once was wall and peristyle,

Or furrows like the main each desert mile,

Where ocean-deep above its ancient food

Of cities fame-forgot, the waste is nude,

Traceless as billows of each sunken pile.

Lo! for that wrong shall vengeance come at last,

When the devouring earth, in ruin one

With royal walls and palaces were undone,

And sunk within the desolated past,

Shall drift, and winds that wrangle through the vast

Immingle it with ashes of the sun.