The morning wears a burnished crown,
That slips to silver, then dusk’s dark gown;
Empires ascend, ablaze in brief acclaim,
Then wither, falling, to the final flame.

Each age inscribes its fragile line—
Stone and song, both lost to time;
Yet now the furrow’s broad and deep,
Unleashing monsters from their sleep.

Of forests felled and rivers changed,
A shadow gathers—grim, estranged;
Never has such darkness reigned—
A world undone by what we made.

What gold we grasped, Nature reclaims;
What fervor’d blaze now cools in chains.
Fields lie barren, gray as bone—
Nature requites what we have sown.

Along the path we carved in pride,
Regret still smolders where dreams died;
The silence tolls, a dirge grown vast—
Our borrowed wonders returned to ash.