For Eager Lovers (Taggard collection)/Twentieth Century Slave-Gang

by Genevieve Taggard

TWENTIETH CENTURY SLAVE-GANG

We who have seen the city's sentinel—Some iron-colored tower, monumentTo slow encroaching force—our thews are bentAgainst her girders! With her noise, her knellFrom this our iron tongue we toll, to tellTorture and toil. Her children are content;They sleep behind her spears, belligerent—Until they start in terror. . . .Until they start in terror. . . .Toll the bell:

Prepare, prepare to see your towers fall;Foundations groan, no longer to withstandThe burdens of your abundant banquet hall.

So perished Babylon. Behold the handThat turns your river underneath the wallAnd makes your wealth an avalanche of sand!