| The Song of Seven Cities |
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| I WAS Lord of Cities very sumptuously builded. |
| Seven roaring Cities paid me tribute from afar. |
| Ivory their outposts were--the guardrooms of them gilded, |
| And garrisoned with Amazons invincible in war. |
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| All the world went softly when it walked before my Cities-- |
| Neither King nor Army vexed my peoples at their toil, |
| Never horse nor chariot irked or overbore my Cities, |
| Never Mob nor Ruler questioned whence they drew their spoil. |
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| Banded, mailed and arrogant from sunrise unto sunset; |
| Singing while they sacked it, they possessed the land at large. |
| Yet when men would rob them, they resisted, they made onset |
| And pierced the smoke of battle with a thousand-sabred charge. |
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| So they warred and trafficked only yesterday, my Cities. |
| To-day there is no mark or mound of where my Cities stood. |
| For the River rose at midnight and it washed away my Cities. |
| They are evened with Atlantis and the towns before the Flood. |
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| Rain on rain-gorged channels raised the water-levels round them, |
| Freshet backed on freshet swelled and swept their world from sight, |
| Till the emboldened floods linked arms and, flashing forward, drowned them-- |
| Drowned my Seven Cities and their peoples in one night! |
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| Low among the alders lie their derelict foundations, |
| The beams wherein they trusted and the plinths whereon they built-- |
| My rulers and their treasure and their unborn populations, |
| Dead, destroyed, aborted, and defiled with mud and silt! |
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| The Daughters of the Palace whom they cherished in my Cities, |
| My silver-tongued Princesses, and the promise of their May-- |
| Their bridegrooms of the June-tide--all have perished in my Cities, |
| With the harsh envenomed virgins that can neither love nor play. |
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| I was Lord of Cities--I will build anew my Cities, |
| Seven, set on rocks, above the wrath of any flood. |
| Nor will I rest from search till I have filled anew my Cities |
| With peoples undefeated of the dark, enduring blood. |
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| To the sound of trumpets shall their seed restore my Cities |
| Wealthy and well-weaponed, that once more may I behold |
| All the world go softly when it walks before my Cities, |
| And the horses and the chariots fleeing from them as of old! |
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| -- Rudyard Kipling |