Wars of great kings and clash of armouries
   Whose swords no man could tell, whose spears
   Were numerous as wheat field's ears
   Rolled over all the great lands, and seas
  
   Were loud with navies, their devouring fires
   Behind the armies burned both fields and towns
   And sacked and crumbled or to flaming pyres
   Were cities made, where treasuries and crowns
  
   Kings and their folk, their wives and tender maids
   Were all consumed. Now silent are those courts
   Ruined the towers, whose old shape slowly fades
   And no feet pass beneath their broken ports