#12 - The Gods' Eternal Game

I dreamed a domèd city in the gloom,

with colonnades and balustrades and towers,

whose shadows hid a harbinger of doom

that laughed at heaven, mocked all earthly powers.

I dreamed a tented city by the shore,

with pennants gleaming in the morning sun ‒

a monument to what has gone before,

a vision of the cancer that's to come.

I dreamed Jerusalem encased in ice,

Byzantium and Babylon aflame ‒

their fates decided by the tumbling dice,

all martyrs to the gods' eternal game.

I dreamed in sepia, dreamed in black-and-white.

I dreamed of spires burning in the night.

RJT

The Professor's Dream - C R Cockerell