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But mother most and motherliest of mine,

Earth, for I ask thee rather of all the Gods,

What have we done? what word mistimed or work

Hath winged the wild feet of this timeless curse

To fall as fire upon us? Lo, I stand

Here on this brow's crown of the city's head

That crowns its lovely body, till death's hour

Waste it; but now the dew of dawn and birth

Is fresh upon it from thy womb, and we

Behold it born how beauteous; one day more

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I see the world's wheel of the circling sun

Roll up rejoicing to regard on earth

This one thing goodliest, fair as heaven or he,

Worth a God's gaze or strife of Gods; but now

Would this day's ebb of their spent wave of strife

Sweep it to sea, wash it on wreck, and leave

A costless thing contemned; and in our stead,

Where these walls were and sounding streets of men,

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