I LOOKED one night, and there the Semiramis, <br />With all her mourning doves about her head, <br />Sat rocking on an ancient road of Hell, <br />Withered and eyeless, chanting to the moon <br />Snatches of song they sang to her of old <br />Upon the lighted roofs of Nineveh. <br />And then her voice rang out with rattling laugh: <br />'The bugles! they are crying back again-- <br />Bugles that broke the nights of Babylon, <br />And then went crying on through Nineveh. <br />.................... <br />Stand back, ye trembling messengers of ill! <br />Women, let go my hair: I am the Queen, <br />A whirlwind and a blaze of swords to quell <br />Insurgent cities. Let the iron tread <br />Of armies shake the earth. Look, lofty towers: <br />Assyria goes by upon the wind!' <br />And so she babbles by the ancient road, <br />While cities turned to dust upon the Earth <br />Rise through her whirling brain to live again-- <br />Babbles all night, and when her voice is dead <br />Her weary lips beat on without a sound.<br /><br />Edwin Markham<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-look-into-the-gulf/
