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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE CITY OF THE GILDED TEAR, by HERBERT KAUFMAN Poet's Biography
First Line: Babylon, o babylon
Last Line: City of the gilded tear?
Subject(s): Babylon; Cities; Judgments; Urban Life
First Line: Babylon, o babylon
Last Line: City of the gilded tear?
Subject(s): Babylon; Cities; Judgments; Urban Life
BABYLON, O Babylon,
Shall thy day be never done?
Shall thy course be never run?
Shall thy towers never fall?
Must we ever heed the call
To the revel in thy hall?
For uncounted, awful years
Have thy gemmed and painted dears
Drunk the wine whose dreg is tears!
Soulless city of the night,
In thy false distorting light,
Right is wrong and wrong is right!
Vice be-rots the fruit you sell,
He who heeds the tales you tell,
Listening, finds the keys to Hell!
Thou wert old in Pharaoh's reign,
Old when Nero dealt in pain,
Old when Christ was born in vain!
Trojan Priam's walls are down;
Cæsar's Rome lies under ground;
But thy temples still abound!
Ever are thy spires near—
Shalt thou never learn to fear,
City of the Gilded Tear?
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