THE SONG OF SEVEN CITIES

     I was Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded. 
     Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from afar. 
     Ivory their outposts were—­the guardrooms of them
       gilded,
     And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war.

     All the world went softly when it walked before my
       Cities—­
     Neither King nor Army vexed my peoples at their toil. 
     Never horse nor chariot irked or overbore my Cities,
     Never Mob nor Ruler questioned whence they drew
       their spoil.

     Banded, mailed and arrogant from sunrise unto sunset,
     Singing while they sacked it, they possessed the land
       at large. 
     Yet when men would rob them, they resisted, they
       made onset
     And pierced the smoke of battle with a thousand-sabred
       charge!

     So they warred and trafficked only yesterday, my Cities. 
     To-day there is no mark or mound of where my Cities
       stood. 
     For the River rose at midnight and it washed away my
       Cities. 
     They are evened with Atlantis and the towns before the
       Flood.

     Rain on rain-gorged channels raised the water-levels
       round them,
     Freshet backed on freshet swelled and swept their
       world from sight,
     Till the emboldened floods linked arms and flashing forward
       drowned them—­
     Drowned my Seven Cities and their peoples in one
       night!

     Low among the alders lie their derelict foundations,
     The beams wherein they trusted and the plinths whereon
       they built—­
     My rulers and their treasure and their unborn populations,
     Dead, destroyed, aborted, and defiled with mud and
       silt!

     The Daughters of the Palace whom they cherished in
       my Cities,
     My silver-tongued Princesses, and the promise of their
       May—­
     Their bridegrooms of the June-tide—­all have perished
       in my Cities,
     With the harsh envenomed virgins that can neither
       love nor play.

     I was Lord of Cities—­I will build anew my Cities,
     Seven, set on rocks, above the wrath of any flood. 
     Nor will I rest from search till I have filled anew my Cities
     With peoples undefeated of the dark, enduring blood.

     To the sound of trumpets shall their seed restore my Cities. 
     Wealthy and well-weaponed, that once more may I behold
     All the world go softly when it walks before my Cities,
     And the horses and the chariots fleeing from them as of old!

‘Swept and Garnished’

(January 1915)