IV
A hundred cities sapped by slow decay,
A hundred codes and systems proven vain
Lie hearsed in sand upon the heaving plain,
Memorial ruins mounded, still and gray;
And we who plod the barren waste to-day
Another code evolving, think to gain
Surcease of man's inheritance of pain
And mold a state immune from evil's sway.
Not laws; but virtue in the soul we need,
The old Socratic justice in the heart,
The golden rule become the people's creed
When years of training have performed their part
For thus alone in home and church and mart
Can evil perish and the race be freed.
The Dust Dethroned. [George Sterling]
Sargon is dust, Semiramis a clod!
In crypts profaned the moon at midnight peers;
The owl upon the Sphinx hoots in her ears,
And scant and sear the desert grasses nod
Where once the armies of Assyria trod,
With younger sunlight splendid on the spears;
The lichens cling the closer with the years,
And seal the eyelids of the weary god.
Where high the tombs of royal Egypt heave,
The vulture shadows with arrested wings
The indecipherable boast of kings,
As Arab children hear their mother's cry
And leave in mockery their toy — they leave
The skull of Pharaoh staring at the sky.
Kinchinjunga. [Cale Young Rice]
(Which is the next highest of mountains)