“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.
