Wars of great kings and clash of armouries

Whose swords no man could tell, whose spears

Were numerous as wheat field's ears

Rolled over all the great lands, and seas



Were loud with navies, their devouring fires

Behind the armies burned both fields and towns

And sacked and crumbled or to flaming pyres

Were cities made, where treasuries and crowns



Kings and their folk, their wives and tender maids

Were all consumed. Now silent are those courts

Ruined the towers, whose old shape slowly fades

And no feet pass beneath their broken ports