By the North Gate, the wind blows full of sand, Lonely from the beginning of time until now! Trees fall, the grass goes yellow with autumn. I climb the towers and towers to watch out the barbarous land: Desolate castle, the sky, the wide desert. There is no wall left to this village. Bones white with a thousand frosts, High heaps, covered with trees and grass; Who brought this to pass? Who has brought the flaming imperial anger? Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums? Barbarous kings. A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn, A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom, Three hundred and sixty thousand, And sorrow, sorrow like rain. Sorrow to go, and sorrow, sorrow returning. Desolate, desolate fields, And no children of warfare upon them, No longer the men for offence and defence. Ah, how shall you know the dreary sorrow at the North Gate, With Riboku's name forgotten, And we guardsmen fed to the tigers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INTELLECT by RALPH WALDO EMERSON A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO by CHARLES LAMB ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT by JONATHAN SWIFT ROSAMOND: KING HENRY'S SONG by JOSEPH ADDISON SONNET: AT STRATFORD-UPON-AVON by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH RAISING THE DEVIL; A LEGEND OF CORNELIUS AGRIPPA by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM WELCOME TO EGYPT by MATHILDE BLIND |