If you could bring her glories back!

You gentle sirs who sift the dust

And burrow in the mould and must

Of Babylon for bric-a-brac;

Who catalogue and pigeon-hole

The faded splendours of her soul

And put her greatness under glass--

If you could bring her past to pass!

If you could bring her dead to life!

The soldier lad ; the market wife;

Madam buying fowls from her;

Tip, the butcher's bandy cur;

Workmen carting bricks and clay;

Babel passing to and fro

On the business of a day

Gone three thousand years ago--

That you cannot; then be done,

Put the goblet down again,

Let the broken arch remain,

Leave the dead men's dust alone--

Is it nothing how she lies,

This old mother of you all,

You great cities proud and tall

Towering to a hundred skies

Round a world she never knew,

Is it nothing, this, to you ?

Must the ghoulish work go on

Till her very floors are gone ?

While there's still a brick to save

Drive these people from her grave!

The Jewish seer when he cried

Woe to Babel's lust and pride

Saw the foxes at her gates;

Once again the wild thing waits.

Then leave her in her last decay

A house of owls, a foxes' den;

The desert that till yesterday

Hid her from the eyes of men

In its proper time and way

Will take her to itself again.