In a summer gone by.

Many the tyrants, my city, who held thee in thrall.

What remains of them now?

Names whispered back from the dark through a portal ajar,

They come not again.

By men thou wert made and wert marred, but, outlasting them all,

Is the soul that is thou—

A soul that shall speak to my soul till I, too, pass afar,

And perchance even then.

Century Amelia Josephine Burr