The Wall
They built the wall because they feared a war.
The soldiers served the whim of psychopaths
and soon abandoned dreams of steaming baths,
civilized orchards, and barbarian whores.
They wrote their wives at first, promising that,
the danger past, in triumph they’d march home
with gold enough to pave the streets of Rome.
They meant to spend their old age growing fat.
But year on year, the legion stood its stations.
Their swords grew rusty and their horses lame.
Some said they’d been forgotten on the wall,
some that the politicians were to blame.
The generals died, the privates ate half-rations.
Like living dead, they waited for the fall.
—William Logan
—from Times Literary Supplement (January 22, 2016; No. 5886)