Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/678

 660 RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE

THE SONG OF SEVEN CITIES

T WAS Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded.

Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from afar. Ivory their outposts were the guardrooms of them gilded. And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war.

All the world went softly when it walked before my Cities Neither King nor Army vexed my peoples at their toiL Never horse nor chariot irked or overbore my Cities, Never Mob nor Ruler questioned whence they drew their spoil.

Banded, mailed and arrogant from sunrise unto sunset, Singing while they sacked it, they possessed the land at large. Yet when men would rob them, they resisted, they made

onset And pierced the smoke of battle with a thousand-sabred

charge.

So they warred and trafficked only yesterday, my Cities. To-day there is no mark or mound of where my Cities stood. For the River rose at midnight and it washed away my Cities. They are evened with Atlantis and the towns before the Flood.

Rain on rain-gorged channels raised the water-levels round

them, Freshet backed on freshet swelled and swept their world

from sight, Till the emboldened floods linked arms and, flashing forward,

drowned them Drowned my Seven Cities and their peoples in one night!