The Balance

The world upheld their pillars for awhile: Now, where imperial On and Carthage stood, The hot wind sifts across the solitude The sand that once was wall and peristyle; Or furrows like the main each tawny mile Where, ocean-deep above its ancient food Of cities fame-forgot, the waste is nude, Traceless as billows of each sunken pile.

Lo! for that wrong shall vengeance come at last, When the devouring earth, in ruin one With royal walls and palaces undone, In dust far-blown from the orbit of the past, Shall drift, and winds that wrangle through the vast Immingle it with ashes of the sun.