Ralph Hodgson, "The Hammers" (1907)
Noise of hammers once I heard,
Many hammers, busy hammers,
Beating, shaping, night and day,
Shaping, beating dust and clay
To a palace; saw it reared;
Saw the hammers laid away.
And I listened, and I heard
Hammers beating, night and day,
In the palace newly reared,
Beating it to dust and clay,
Other hammers, muffled hammers,
Silent hammers of decay.
Published in Colored American Magazine, May 1907