FALLEN CITIES
by: Gerald Gould (1885-1936)
- GATHERED with a careless hand,
- There where the waters night and day
- Are languid in the idle bay,
- A little heap of golden sand;
- And, as I saw it, in my sight
- Awoke a vision brief and bright,
- A city in a pleasant land.
-
- I saw no mound of earth, but fair
- Turrets and domes and citadels,
- With murmuring of many bells;
- The spires were white in the blue air,
- And men by thousands went and came,
- Rapid and restless, and like flame
- Blown by their passions here and there.
- With careless hand I swept away
- The little mound before I knew;
- The visioned city vanished too,
- And fall'n beneath my fingers lay.
- Ah God! how many hast Thou seen,
- Cities that are not and have been,
- By silent hill and idle bay!
"Fallen Cities" is reprinted from Poems of Today. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1921. |
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