The Barrow of the World

I based this off of the descending constitutions of Plato, a dream a friend had, and, loosely, H.G. Wells' view of the evolution of mankind. So yeah, it's kind of vague.

For context (in case you don't know), a barrow is an ancient tomb beneath a mound of earth, where kings were buried with their treasure.

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Beneath the slumb’ring heap of all the stars

Who blanket all the earth with flaming bars

The scram’bling masses toil, and war, and play,

And glorify themselves in grand display

Beyond the weary clanging strokes of time

They built, and upwards always sought to climb

Until, at last, a monument they built

To stand upon and trample hist’ry’s guilt.

Her face was stern, her marble fair as glass

Beneath her, nations fell and came to pass

Her bleak colossal form none could destroy

No iron horse could breach this marble Troy.

She was the herald of the age of stone

As man slew Earth, and harvested her bone

The glory of these monumental days

Was magnified as man gave man his praise

And those who chanced to gaze into the sky

To strive to look their glory in the eye

Would gaze at her a moment, turn away,

And wonder what those tears of stone betrayed

She saw the twilight of the temples rough

Men wished for honor, found in harder stuff

The marble of her flesh grew obsolete

And iron clanged about her mighty feet

The shout of “Honor!” swarmed throughout the land

And when a man glanced up from sword in hand,

He seemed to see the eye of era past

Spill over with a tear of iron cast

But soon the men of earth grew fat and slow

No striking blade nor craft of war to know

Their fingers knew instead the touch of gold;

Their minds, how much their coffers did not hold.

From far aloft she gazed on down to earth

The mother she had stood upon from birth

Glinting were the eyes that counted gold,

And golden were the tears that downwards rolled.

Then in the twilight era of an age

Men’s greed for gain was carried by their rage

And soon the gold itself was washed away,

By flowing blood beneath a dying day.

And she who men had said would fear no foe

Till end of time, now felt the crimson flow

And though her feet stood strong and yet unmoved

Her tears of blood two narrow cracks did groove.

And when each banner ‘pon the field was furled

She stood above the cold and silent world

And as despairing wind wore down her face

An icy tear her ancient cracks did trace

The still and awful corpses of the past

Were shrouded by the future’s night at last

And weary Earth, the mother spurned by man,

Enfolded them within her tired hands

And then, at last, a timid dawn arose

And thawed away the tears the wind now froze

Upon the crumb’ling monument to man

That history and ages once had spanned

As light returned and souls away they whirled

Man rested ‘neath the barrow of the world

Entombed within a temple to his dreams

And comforted by all his passing schemes.

And far above, the ancient marble face

Looked down upon the buried human race

And final tears ran down each cracked ravine

She wept, and down fell tiny flowers green

They fell upon the barrow of mankind

And life began anew where first they twined

And monument to glories of the past

Fell crumb’ling to the earth in peace at last.