The Monuments of Pride

When last you saw that figure stand,
In robes of thought and scholar’s hand,
Who, called to teach, spoke empty air—
No truth to lift, no light to share.

He vowed to guide through hidden ways,
But wisdom turned from hollow praise.
False friends, your journey finds its close,
For knowledge fades where folly grows.

Led on to gates where pride was crowned,
By politics and faith unsound,
Through ragged paths of thought they crossed,
Where decency itself seemed lost.

Yet there, beneath ambition’s dome,
Stood art and craft, the mind’s proud home.
Stone busts and symbols, finely wrought,
Now rust beneath the storms of thought.

The politician raised his voice—
“Behold our Art, our human choice!
Here genius labors, fire divine,
To shape, to build, to redefine.”

But falsehood echoed through the hall,
Each word a curse, each truth grown small.
“What horrors next,” they whispered low,
“Shall from these gilded ruins grow?”

Beyond the gate, beneath the sky,
A vast form rose, its edges high—
A monument from ages gone,
Its shadow cast on sands of dawn.

A pyramid of horn and stone,
By demons built, by kings enthroned.
Three thousand years its weight had known,
Still standing proud, yet cold as bone.

The sun had crowned its ancient head,
The lightning struck, yet left it spread.
No storm nor time could make it fall—
But fire from heaven waits for all.

Beyond the dunes, the idols rise,
Their shapes like gods against the skies.
The demon’s head sings forth by night,
A music born of banished light.

Its tones, like curses, drift unseen,
And stain the dreams where grace had been.
A voice from stone the angels break—
An evil song no age could shake.

They turned and saw a column stand,
Red granite carved by mortal hand.
Its spiral towered toward the blue,
Each line a boast the builder drew.

“Pompey’s Pillar,” proud and high,
No mortal soul could reach its sky.
What feats the fearless Briton claimed,
Are etched in ruin and in flame.

They sought the Gardens lost in lore,
Where Babylon’s terraces once soared.
A living monument of air and pride,
Where leaders in their dreams abide.

Its walls and gates with sin untold,
Still glimmer faint with blood and gold.
The city sleeps, yet cannot hide—
The crown remains: the thorns of pride.