Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RUIN IN CATHAY: 1. 1217, by J. F. HARRIS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RUIN IN CATHAY: 1. 1217, by                    
First Line: No sound of bird now breathes from the hushed walls
Last Line: Genghis kha khan has scampered through cathay.
Subject(s): China - Song Dynasty (960-1278); Genghiz Khan (1162-1227); Jenghiz Khan; Chingis Khan; Chingiz Khan


No sound of bird now breathes from the hushed walls.
Only the wind whistles through the long night
Where ghosts of the dead wander. And less bright,
The moon shimmers on swirling snow that falls
On snow-whipped fields. Approach the eerie calls
Of yowling wolves. And in the filtered light,
The fosses of the walls are frozen tight
With blood and bodies where the wild pack yawls.

Spent are its arrows, bowstrings snapped in twain,
Its warring engines useless from the blast.
The strength of its war steeds is ebbed away;
The strange fire dead that it had hurled in vain
Upon the Mongols as they plundered past.
Genghis Kha Khan has scampered through Cathay.





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