Classic Poem

This way the flying Lord of Babylon
Carried the tarnished splendour of his name,
The wreck of empire and the lees of shame;
This way the winged avenger hurried on;
And here the conqueror, weeping, gazed upon
The bloody, severed and unsceptred hand,
The lips, erewhile the trumpet of command,
That doubly told him that his work was done.

And Fate stood by, and smiled upon her slave,
And in the deeps of her prophetic eyes
Beheld the surge of empire, wave on wave,
Gather and break, and rise and fall and rise,
Sapor and Omar, Alp and Tamerlane,
Nor told the conqueror that his work was vain.