The Tower of Genghis Khan

It stands upon a plain in far Cathay,
A tower like a needle with its eye
Through which the desert sun strikes once a day
At noontide when the mountain shadows die.

Eastward the plain swoops downward and away,
Folding about the towers of U-ban,
Where herds of yaks and fleece-clad Tartars stray
Along Mongolian marches of the Khan.

Ever the Earth turns eastward toward the night,
Dragging the tower with it till you spy
The dragon watchfires of the Heavenly Wall
Tingeing the Chinese sky.

Night pales to day; and day burns into noon,
Till once again the sun darts through the eye
At midday when the watchman sounds a tune
On yak's horn, like a dying eagle's cry.

Age after age that lonely horn has told
The noons of endless centuries that pass
Slower than granite turning into mould,
Long as the tower's shadow on the grass.

Only a story lingers in U-ban
Of once, how in the pride of crazy-power,
They saw one scarlet sunset Genghis Khan
Climb to the very top of that same tower.

And toward the East his snowwhite mantle fling;
Sunward the bloody signal of his vest, —
So arrows whistling like a wild duck's wing
Fell on the startled cities of the West.