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“Nations shall bow before thee,

“All of thy brothers shall praise thee,

“Fruit on thy boughs shall blossom,

“Tribes from thy loins have birth.”

Sing-song chants from the ghettoes,

Tell of a thin limbed people,

Crowded into their hovels,

Rats who blink at the sun—

Where is thy heritage, Judah?

Lost in the mists of ages.

These are a bastard motley,

Ghosts of a race long run.

Easter Island

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How many weary centuries have flown

Since strange-eyed beings walked this ancient shore,

Hearing, as we, the green Pacific's roar,

Hewing fantastic gods from sullen stone!

The sands are bare; the idols stand alone.

Impotent 'gainst the years was all their lore:

They are forgot in ages dim and hoar;

Yet still, as then, the long tide-surges drone.

What dreams had they that shaped these uncouth things?

Before these gods what victims bled and died?

What purple galleys swept along the strand

That bore the tribute of what dim sea-kings?

But now, they reign o'er a forgotten land,

Gazing forever out beyond the tide.

Empire’s Destiny

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Bab-ilu's women gazed upon our spears,

And roses flung, and sang to see us ride.

We built a glory for the marching years

And starred our throne with silver nails of pride.

Our horses' hoofs were shod with brazen fears:

We laved our hands in blood and iron tears,

And laughed to hear how shackled kings had died.

Our chariots awoke the sleeping world;

The thunder of our hoofs the mountains broke;

Before our spears were empires' banners furled

Amd death and doom and iron winds were hurled,

And slaughter rode before, and clouds and smoke--

Then in the desert lands the tribes awoke

And death and vengeance 'round our walls were whirled.

Oh Babylon, lost Babylon! Where now

The opal altar and the golden spire,

The tower and the legend and the lyre?

Oh, withered fruit upon a broken bough!

The sobbing desert winds still whisper how

The sapphire city of the gods' desire

Fell in the smoke and crumbled in the fire;

And lizards bask upon her columns now.

Now poets sing her golden glory gone;

And Babylon has faded with the dawn.

Eternity

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I am older than the world:

Older than life.

The race of man is a babe in the cradle of Time.

I am Alpha and Omega.

The first and the last;

The circle without end.

I am a serpent with its tail in its mouth;

I am a triangle whose tips overlap a circle.

I am the older sister of Destiny.

Before man was, I was:

And after man has vanished from the Universe, I will be.

Time is a phantom, built by the mind of man;

There is no Time.

The thing that men call Time flies before my wind;

Time has beginning, duration, ending.

I am that which was, is and shall be;

Unceasing, Neverending, Eternal.

Number all the sands of all the shores of all the worlds

Of all the Universes.

And let each sand represent a million centuries;

And they all shall not be a single instant

Of Eternity.

For I am numberless and unnumbered,

Eternity had no beginning nor shall there be ending.

I am Alpha and Omega.

That which was, is and shall be;

Numberless and unnumbered.

Fables For Little Folk

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He was six foot four and wide as a door

And he weighed two hundred pounds

And he laughed as he spoke, "I’ll cool that bloke.

I’ll flatten him in two rounds."

Ah, the crowd they cheered, but the crowd they jeered

When his foeman stepped in the ring;

They hissed and jowled and the giant scowled

And rushed with a round-house swing.

Yes, he came full tilt but the beans were spilt

For the smaller man timed him fair

And knocked him out with a left hand clout

And the crowd gave him the air.

So the moral is this: make your foeman miss

And never lead with your right,

But the first that you’re to do is be sure

That it’s not Jack Dempsey you fight.

“Feach Air Muir Lionadhi Gealach Buidhe Mar Or”

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Mananan Mac Lir

The son of the sea

Is sib unto me

At the break of the year.

In the white autumn tides

The ghost drums call

When the midnights fall,

And the ghost ship rides

Where the green waves crawl.

I break the loam

By a Kerry hill—

They beckon me still

Through the purple gloam;

Strange eyes in the foam.

The sea-wind chills

The crumbling stones,

And a ghost harp moans

In the shadowy hills.

But a white sail fills

And a sweep-head drones.

The great white oars

They gleam and bend

And the west wind roars

From the blue world's end;

They call me like a friend,

Forgotten shores.

Flaming Marble

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I carved a woman out of marble when

The walls of Athens echoed to my fame,

And in the myrtle crown was shrined my name.

I wrought with skill beyond all mortal ken.

And into cold inhuman beauty then

I breathed a touch of white and living flame --

And from her pedestal she rose and came

To snare the souls and rend the hearts of men.

Without a soul, without a human heart

She shattered mortal love and mortal pride

And even I fell victim to my art,

With bitter joyless love I took my bride.

And still with frozen hate that never dies

She sits and stares at me with icy eyes.