We raise our own, our king’s, our Khufu’s walls

And hide behind with yams against our yielding

Because we have been paid or whipped to build

Against unbuilding.

But no old colonial pillbox with its beams

Fitted and spiked to rib

Many a cluster of lungs and hearts from cold;

No buttressed granite keep, or church, or shed

Pillared against the slug, or mouse, or mold;

Not even the snuggest web

Woven of words and prayers for iron tomes

Will serve to hold off Ugly, The Plugger, the dread

Borer in the bastions of our ruin.