May 24

The name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.

ONCE Babylon, by beauty tenanted In pleasure palaces and walks of pride, Like a great scarlet flower reared her head, Drank in the sun and laughed and sinned and died.

Such names of pride and power have been brought low, Lapsing alike into the cavernous years: Out of the greyness of the long ago Their ghosts flit homeless, and we guess their tears

The destiny of nations! They arise, Have their heyday of triumph, and in turn Sink upon silence, and the lidless eyes Of fate salute them from their final urn.

How splendid-sad the story! How the gust And pain and bliss of living transient seem! Cities and pomps and glories shrunk to dust, And all that ancient opulence a dream.

Must a majestic rhythm of rise and fall Conquer the peoples once so proud on earth? Does man but march in circles after all, Playing his curious game of death and birth?

Or shall an ultimate nation, God's own child, Arise and rule, nor ever conquered be; Untouched by time, because, all undefiled, She makes His ways her ways eternally?

RICHARD BURTON

A NATION

Lovest thou that people better than He that made them? Thou canst not.