Nara Nog Poem by Maurice Browne

Rank growth of grass, and columns overthrown,
Black pools of rain, and icy storm-swept heights
Titanic fragments of hewn stone,
Frowning forests drear and dark as night's
Unnamed unholy rites:

Scurrying cloud-wrack, wind and wail and woe,
Ruinous fanes of gods forgotten long,
Rushing river and trackless snow
On crag and peak and precipice, and the strong
Roar of the cataract's song:

Wind, storm, and rain, rain, snow, and stormy wind,
These with their tempest-wingéd might o'erthrew-
While the avalanche howled behind-
Yon shattered monstrous forms, that once were You,
Shrines once a godhead knew.

These overthrew. But who upreared and how?-
What magic music or what royal rod
Built you- whose desolate courts now
Only by prowling forest-beasts are trod-
In what dead world, to what dead god?