Ambrose Bierce

Shapes of Clay Ambrose Bierce

I know not if it was a dream. I viewedA city where the restless multitude, Between the eastern and the western deepHad roared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude. Colossal palaces crowned every height; Towers from valleys climbed into the light; O'er dwellings at their feet, great golden domesHung in the blue, barbarically bright. But now, new-glimmering to-east, the dayTouched the black masses with a grace of gray, Dim spires of temples to the nation's GodStudding high spaces of the wide survey. Well did the roofs their solemn secret keepOf life and death stayed by the truce of sleep, Yet whispered of an hour-when sleepers wake, The fool to hope afresh, the wise to weep. The gardens greened upon the builded hillsAbove the tethered thunders of the millsWith sleeping wheels unstirred to service yetBy the tamed torrents and the quickened rills. A hewn acclivity, reprieved a space, Looked on the builder's blocks about his baseAnd bared his wounded breast in sign to say: "Strike! 't is my destiny to lodge your race."'T was but a breath ago the mammoth browsedUpon my slopes, and in my caves I housedYour shaggy fathers in their nake