BEFORE the monstrous wrong he sets him down -- One man against a stone-walled city of sin. For centuries those walls have been a-building; Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink, No crevice lets the thinnest arrow in. He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him. Let him lie down and die: what is the right, And where is justice, in a world like this? But by and by, earth shakes herself, impatient; And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash Watch-tower and citadel and battlements. When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WINDSOR FOREST by ALEXANDER POPE THE STUDY OF A SPIDER by JOHN BYRNE LEICESTER WARREN AMPHIPOLIS by ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA DELIVERANCE by CHARLES WILLIAM BRODRIBB STANZAS IN PROSPECT OF DEATH by ROBERT BURNS |