A Nation Once Again was voted the world's most popular song according to a BBC World Service global poll of listeners, ahead of "Vande Mataram", the national song of India. Davis copied the melody for the chorus from the second movement of Mozart's clarinet concerto. The lyrics use a simple ABABCDCD rhyme scheme, with verses of eight lines, and alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Davis describes how he learned of ancient fighters for freedom as a boy — the three hundred Spartans who fought at the Battle of Thermopylae. The "three men" may refer to Horatius Cocles and his two companions
Shall the Dust Praise Thee? the true end of days had already occurred through nuclear warfare. No living creatures, no water, no grass, nothing but dust and brittle stone remain on the world. All that remains of humanity is the phrase left by the last humans as a message to God, saying, "WE WERE HERE. WHERE WERE YOU?" Shall the Dust Praise Thee? "Shall the Dust Praise Thee?" is a science fiction short story by American writer Damon Knight. It was first published in the anthology "Dangerous Visions" (1967). His agent refused to publish it and suggested the "Atheist Journal" in Moscow might buy, it