The Burden of Babylon

A noise of steeds and battle-cars!
The Lord of battles calls his bands;
They come from far and foreign lands,
From kingdoms known to alien stars.

The mountains echo back the tread
And shout of nations drawing nigh;
A dust of peoples palls the sky,
As though the sun and moon were dead.

The wicked perish in their wrong,
The arrogance of nobles pales,
The valiant utter woman wails,
The arrow smiteth through the strong.

And glorious, queenly Babylon,
The beauty of Chaldean pride,
Shall be as when Gomorrah died
By Sodom's side in ages gone.

While God remembereth her sin.
No people there may build and breed,
Nor Arab tether there his steed,
Nor shepherd fold his flock within;

But all the desert creatures there
Shall habit; bodeful monsters call;
The vulture flap from hall to hall;
The satyr dance in temples bare.

In ruined palaces and towers
Shall wail the daughters of the owl,
And slimy dragons crawl and howl
Where lofty gardens hung their bowers.

Her doom is near. O judgment day!
O day of vengeance, when the Lord
Shall lift the bow of Media's horde
And Marduk fall to long decay!