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Turn ye and look on ancient Babylon,— The glory of Chaldea's excellence. —Where is thy golden throne,—thou queen of earth? Thy heaven-defying walls,—thy molten gates, Thy towering terraces of trees and flowers, Thy river-god Euphrates,—thy gay priests, Effeminate kings,—astrologers with eyes Seal'd to the stars?—Methinks, even now I trace What struck thy prince, amid his revels, pale. The mystic fingers of a sever'd hand Inscribing Mene on thy mouldering dust. —Ask ye for Tyre,—for populous Nineveh, For temple-crown'd Jerusalem,—for Thebes The hundred-gated,—or for Carthage proud?— Go!—ask the winnowing winds that waste the chaff Of human glory.—Ask ye who engraved Mene upon Pompeii's radiant halls, When dust and ashes quench'd their revelry?— The hand that graves it on thy own frail frame, Thy palaces of pleasure,—domes of pride,— And bowers of hope.—The pen of judging Heaven Writes "Mene—Mene—Tekel"—on all joys Of this deluding world.—That world herself So blind and blinding,—she shall read her doom Upon the blacken'd sky,—by the last ray Of the pale,—fainting sun,—and smit with pangs Like him of Babylon,—shall tottering fall To rise no more.—What then shall be their lot, Who sought no wealth but hers,—nor tasted joy Save in her smile?