| Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917. |
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| 44. The Buried City |
| | | By George Sylvester Viereck |
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| MY heart is like a city of the gay | |
| Reared on the ruins of a perished one | |
| Wherein my dead loves cower from the sun, | |
| White-swathed like kings, the Pharaohs of a day. | |
| Within the buried city stirs no sound, | 5 |
| Save for the bat, forgetful of the rod, | |
| Perched on the knee of some deserted god, | |
| And for the groan of rivers underground. | |
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| Stray not, my Love, ’mid the sarcophagi— | |
| Tempt not the silence, for the fates are deep, | 10 |
| Lest all the dreamers, deeming doomsday nigh, | |
| Leap forth in terror from their haunted sleep; | |
| And like the peal of an accursèd bell | |
| Thy voice call ghosts of dead things back from hell. | |
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