To feed the ages which sup on rise and fall To make a blood offering to decay itself Did cast off Mars attendant, sanctioned white robes Besieged by the poisons of pure senescence Dry, without libations shall lie imperial soil Lest it be the sweet wine of its own demise Thirsting for oblations of blood upon its altars Lest it be the forsaken blood of its own youth Fallow thy temples of stone Thrown open to beasts Observing cold centuries Where no works are spared When the gates of Mars were closed and hands chained In the lap of a corruption more fell than arms To slake the ages did that empire fall For the past is pregnant with a future ready seen