Oh ye men of Greece and Rome,
Too long have ye laboured,
Feel you not what is to come,
the grass by the wall of the ruin?  

Leave ye down your tools, ancient peoples,
know you not what is to come?  
See you not the pass of many years,
the grass through pavements old?

Great enterprise never sprung from a fertile land,
Go ye into the desert, and there build your temples,
Amongst the sands and beneath the sun,
where grass can never grow.  

Here the  lines and here the verse,
Here the vaults and chimneys,
Hark the turning of the days,
eek the tall and terrible days.  

Lo, the falling of a chimney,
Lo, the crack of stones to splinter,
Lo, the old oak tree stands yawning.
better to build from bushes and thorn.  

Have at your lawnmowers, ye council men,
And see what good it does you,
Think ye can halt the rise and fall,
of strong towers left to ruin?

Have at your anoraks, and have at your coats,
Clouds gather above and rankle the parapet,
Here stood a roof, here a joist, here a beam,
blackened in the soot and flames –  here falls the rain.  

Have at your sickles, and have at your hammers,
Go back to steppe and sod from whence ye came,
And never more disturb the sepulchral vaults,
where lie long dead men of Greece and Rome.