After its capture in 1862, Nashville was developed by Union forces into the most fortified city in North America. A series of forts ringed the city, the largest and southernmost being Fort Negley, named for U.S. Gen. James Scott Negley, provost marshal and commander of Federal forces in Nashville. (info is from here http://www.bonps.org/neg.htm )

I thought the following poem goes well with the ruins of this old fort, the largest inland masonry fortification in North America.:

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows.
"I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone,
"The King of kings: this mighty city shows
The wonders of my hand." The city's gone!
Naught but the leg remaining to disclose
The sight of that forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What wonderful, but unrecorded, race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

-- Horace Smith



Part of the November Challenge which is A Song, A Poem or A Proverb.