CRETE

By ROBERT E. HOWARD

The green waves wash above us
 Who slumber in the bay
As washed the tide of ages
 That swept our race away.

Our cities—dusty ruins;
 Our galleys—deep-sea slime;
Our very ghosts, forgotten,
 Bow to the sweep of Time.

Our land lies stark before it
 As we to alien spears,
But, ah, the love we bore it
 Outlasts the crawling years.

Ah, jeweled spires at even—
 The lute's soft golden sigh—
The Lion-Gates of Knossos
 When dawn was in the sky.