Imperial Dust

Though great and wise as all the world
The greatest world I'll never know;
My dying heart and fading eyes
Were blinder than an embryo’s.
I built up wealth to scrape the sky
To triple heights of Babel Tower,
I laughed, but though my speech seemed sane
My brain was maddened in its power.

I found I couldn't be content
But dived in madder escapades;
I praised nonsense as novelty,
My nuance was source of accolades.
“Sky’s the limit” was my cry
The World Elites applauded me.
But when your platform stands that high
Your start to fear earth’s gravity.

I smote the man who’d pull me down
“I MUST be grander than the earth,”
And soon began to rival legends
Long entombed before my birth.
Yet in my riches, in my fame
My lust for more would not abate.
The plaques and prizes with my name
Will, like all things, disintegrate.

My castle’s built with strongest brick
But weather wears the stoutest stone
And now that I've made fame my aim
I ask, “What marks me when it’s gone?”
I've made my worth to be my gold,
But trophies will decay and rust.
I'll die and come to naught but ash;
The best I'll be is storied dust.

I have not senior'd Ancient Dirt
Who humbly clings to mankind’s foot;
The dirt saw empires raised by men
And took them when they turned to soot.
I have evolved no novel grace,
Though soon I might devolve to dust
And join dead, sooty, famous men
In their Augean acropolis.

But they’d and I'd be infantile
With Eden distant, unattained.
Because we traded grace for pride,
And drew a bead on worldly aims.