To Babylon (the forgotten and the One to come)

Babylon, you ancient city,

Rich in treasure, wide in fame;

You who lay on many waters,

To the Sun extend your flame.

 

Your golden torches, flo’ers of

The desert, speak of wisdom

Hard obtained - to chart the sky

And chain the stars, you’ve

Sold your soul! And what to gain?

Now in dust, your Bones glisten,

burned by Sun you’ve set to enslave!

Wisdom bars the senses’ flow, and

In the flesh-less form, you’re set to

Be reborn; reborn as what? As slave

To the ages’ relentless march, you

Hold your sword and rose; hand in

Hand you walk with doubt and fear,

And yet, your path is neatly prepared;

Why, then, do you, with anxiety manifest,

Condemn the future and praise the past?

The dead are dead, the living inherit the world,

And yet, you call on to the times’ long past

Ghosts, ancestral wisdom; what shall you gain?

Courage and conviction, surely, man cannot

Obtain from sources unknown to his heart,

Why, then, do you seek yourself in the Moon and

Stars, in the depths of the earth, ‘midst the hearth?

You dwell on many waters, aqua permanens your

Sigil to encircle the flame; but the blaze divinely rages,

From ashen walls to Heaven’s gilded marble floor, marking

Every angel, man and beast; curse of death, life of dying!

Clutch your rose, golden flo’er, and raise the silver sword;

For idle hands are evil hands! At work, now, and you shall

See; the fruits of labour are sweet, though sour the roots of

Its tree. Lest we tire on the steps of wisdom, wisdom we will

Receive; for Babylon, you have fallen, but your fire remains,

Within Man’s heart and in his mind, and so Babylon shall fall

Again.