Simulacra
DARK in the west the sunset’s sombre rack
Unrolled vast walls the rams of war had split,
Along whose battlements the battle lit
Tempestuous beacons ; and, with gates hurled back,
A mighty city, red with ruin and sack,
Through smouldering breaches, crumbling bit by bit,
Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sit
With Conflagration glaring at each crack.
Unrolled vast walls the rams of war had split,
Along whose battlements the battle lit
Tempestuous beacons ; and, with gates hurled back,
A mighty city, red with ruin and sack,
Through smouldering breaches, crumbling bit by bit,
Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sit
With Conflagration glaring at each crack.
Who knows ? Perhaps as sleep unto us makes
Our dreams as real as our waking seems
With recollections time cannot destroy,
So in the mind of Nature now awakes
Haply some wilder memory, and she dreams
The stormy story of the fall of Troy.
Our dreams as real as our waking seems
With recollections time cannot destroy,
So in the mind of Nature now awakes
Haply some wilder memory, and she dreams
The stormy story of the fall of Troy.
Madison Cawein.