Was it not so, that once a mighty land

Surfeit with swords to raze the world aside;

Prodigious wealth that stood the grandest grand,

Tall-ships that sailed wherever rose a tide;

More powerful than Egypt’s lofty heights,

Haughtier than regal righteous Rome

And with a reach exceeding Persia’s might—

Did rule in fraud from ‘neath an iron dome.

Contained therein a heart of leaded glass

Projecting rays of guilt and vanity,

Rejecting truths that empires come to pass

—Though icons litter sands eternally.

They worshipped canons of sage Cleisthenes,

Whose Xipos blade soon dropped them to their knees.