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? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE TRENCHES by RICHARD ALDINGTON THE SEVEN ARTS by ROBERT FROST EVERYBODY KNOWS by DAVID IGNATOW A FLORIDA GHOST by SIDNEY LANIER THE POET; SONNET by AMY LOWELL TO AN EARLY DAFFODIL; SONNET by AMY LOWELL THE BLIND by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |