I met a vet from an ancient land
Who said: Nine vast and knuckleless nubs of rot
Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sheets,
Half sunk, a gnawed thumb lines, whose chewy bits,
And wrinkled skin, and crook of cold command,
Tell that its culinary well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The finger that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the vitals sheet these words appear:
"My name is 'Nubs, king of kings:
Look on my stumps ye mighty and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The ragged and eroded knobs inch closer to their doom.
