Ruins

I knew they were Accursed
 so remote were these nameless desert ruins
 Crumbling and inarticulate the debris of
 its collapsed walls was
 Nearly hidden by the sands of the uncounted ages
 It must have been thus before the first stones of
 Memphis were laid
 And the bricks of Babylon unbaked
 Fear spoke from the age worn stones
 This desolate survivor of the Deluge
 This crumbling antidiluvial ancestor
 Of the Eldest Pyramid

 Only the grim brooding desert Gods
 Knew what really took place here
 What indescribable struggles and bloodshed
 Awoke some distant throng of condemned spirits
 And broke the tomblike silence of these crumbled
 Time ravaged remains these night black ruins
 Of some vanquished and buried Temple of Belial

 But as the Night wind died away
 Above the desert rim rose the
 Blazing edge of the morning sun
 Which in my fevered state
 I swore that from some remote depth there came a
 Great crash of metal
 Like a great Bronze gate
 Clanging shut whose reverberations swelled out
 To hail the rising Sun as Memnon hails it
 From the banks of the Nile