share?

II.

I have heard friendly sounds from many a tongue,
Which was not human-the lone Nightingale
Has answer'd me with her most soothing song,
Out of her ivy bower, when I sate pale
With grief, and sigh'd beneath; from many a dale
The Antelopes who flock'd for food have spoken
With happy sounds, and motions, that avail

Like man's own speech; and such was now the token Of waning night, whose calm by that proud neigh was

broken.

Ш.

Each night, that mighty steed bore me abroad,
And I returned with food to our retreat,

And dark intelligence; the blood which flow'd
Over the fields, had stain'd the courser's feet;-
Soon the dust drinks that bitter dew, then meet
The vulture, and the wild-dog, and the snake,
The wolf, and the hyæna grey, and eat
The dead in horrid truce; their throngs did make
Behind the steed, a chasm like waves in a ship's wake.

abhors.

VIII.

Myriads had come-millions were on their way;
The Tyrant past, surrounded by the steel
Of hired assassins, through the public way,
Choked with his country's dead: -his footsteps reel
On the fresh blood-he smiles, Aye, now I feel
I am a King in truth! he said, and took

His royal seat, and bade the torturing wheel

Be brought, and fire, and pincers, and the hook, And scorpions; that his soul on its revenge might look.

IX.

• But first, go slay the rebels-why return The victor bands?" he said, millions yet live, Of whom the weakest with one word might turn The scales of victory yet;-let none survive But those within the walls-each fifth shall give The expiation for his brethren here.Go forth, and waste and kill!-- O king, forgive My speech, a soldier answer'd- but we fear The spirits of the night, and morn is drawing near;

The fish were poison'd in the streams; the birds
In the green woods perish'd; the insect race
Was wither'd up; the scatter'd flocks and herds
Who had survived the wild beasts' hungry chace
Died moaning, each upon the other's face
In helpless agony gazing; round the City
All night, the lean hyænas their sad case

Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty!

XVI.

Amid the aërial minarets on high, The Ethiopian vultures fluttering fell From their long line of brethren in the sky, Startling the concourse of mankind.-Too well These signs the coming mischief did foretell:Strauge panic first, a deep and sickening dread Within each heart, like ice, did sink and dwell, A voiceless thought of evil, which did spread With the quick glance of eyes, like withering lightnings

shed.

XVII.

Day after day, when the year wanes, the frosts
Strip its green crown of leaves, till all is bare;
So on those strange and congregated hosts
Came Famine, a swift shadow, and the air
Groaned with the burthen of a new despair;
Famine, than whom Misrule no deadlier daughter
Feeds from her thousand breasts, though sleeping there
With lidless eyes, lie Faith, and Plague, and Slaughter,

A ghastly brood; conceived of Lethe's sullen water.

XVIH.

There was no food, the corn was trampled down, The flocks and herds had perished; on the shore The dead and putrid fish were ever thrown: The deeps were foodless, and the winds no more Creak'd with the weight of birds, but as before Those winged things sprang forth, were void of shade; The vines and orchards, Autumn's golden store, Were burn'd;-so that the meanest food was weigh'd With gold, and Avarice died before the god it made.

XIX.

There was no corn-in the wide market-place All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold; They weigh'd it in small scales-and many a face Was fix'd in eager horror then: his gold The miser brought, the tender maid, grown bold Through hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain: The mother brought her eldest born, controll'd By instinct blind as love, but turn'd again And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.

xx.

Then fell blue Plague upon the race of man.
O, for the sheathed steel, so late which gave
Oblivion to the dead, when the streets ran
With brothers' blood! O, that the earthquake's grave
Would gape, or Ocean lift its stifling wave!»
Vain cries-throughout the streets, thousands pursued
Each by his fiery torture howl and rave,
Or sit, in frenzy's unimagined mood,

Upon fresh heaps of dead; a ghastly multitude.

XXI.

It was not hunger now, but thirst. Each well
Was choked with rotting corpses, and became
A cauldron of green mist made visible
At sunrise. Thither still the myriads came,
Seeking to quench the agony of the flame
Which raged like poison through their bursting veins;
Naked they were from torture, without shame,
Spotted with nameless scars and lurid blains,

quivering knees.