The day that towers, sapphire kissed,
Reeled to a Mongol sword that hissed,
And broke the silver sighing mist
   That parted doom from Nisapur.

Or when in morning shadows grey
The flying ghosts of Subotai
came galloping from far Cathay
   To trample towers of Nisapur.

Or when in midnight's star-shah'd rule
There came o'er sands like golden pools,
Bayezid riding from Stamboul
   To break the walls of Nisapur.

Ere Rustum, great fire-breathing lord
Who broke the genii with his sword,
Had fallen before the Golden Horde
   His bones are dust in Nisapur.

And he who chanted of the vine,
Split like a skin of Shiraz wine,
Had made that dust a ting divine―
   Divine the dust of Nisapur.