THE WATCHER IN THE SKY

She has grown pale and spectral with our wounds

And she is worn with memories of woe

Older than Karnak. Multitudinous feet

Of all the phantom armies of the world

Resounding down the hollow halls of time,

Have kept their far-off rumor in her ear.

For she was old when Nineveh and Tyre

And Baalbec of the waste went down in blood;

Pompey and Tamburlaine and Genghis Khan

Are dreams of only yesternight to her.

And still she keeps, chained to a loathsome thing,

Her straining, distant paces up and down

The vaulted cell, but wistful of an end

When all our swarm of shuddering life shall drop

Like some dead cooling cinder down the void,

Leaving her clean, in blessed barrenness.