And the escutcheoned and emblazoned tombs
Of heroes yawned, and earthquakes rent in twain
The sepulchres of kings; as all the hosts
Of crowned tyrants, or mailed conquerors,
Who had from age to age quaffed human blood
Like wine, and scattered human flesh like dust,
Strew'd by the hurricane at pitch of noon;
Rose, at the call of God's arch-minister,
In all the mockery of regal pomp;
Cold, fleshless, shrunken, marrowless, and dry;
With dimm'd tiaras on their skeleton brows,
And rotten sceptres in their bony gripe,
And fretted swords, blood-crusted in their hands,
And as they tore their cerements in twain,
With dismal joy, their hollow eye-sockets,
But now the charnelled bats lone hiding place,
Drank day again; and oh! their lipless jaws,
Grinning like wild hyenas in a storm,
Did seem to breathe the bright and vital air,
And they became once more as living souls.
Awhile they trembled at the strange array
Set forth in heaven; then suddenly they formed
Themselves in deathlike phalanx, cramped and
clasped
Together like a bastion, and shook high,
As in defiance and the lust of rage,
Their shadowy arms, and sprang forth wild
And headlong to the fight with frantic yells,
Like those with which fierce troops of jackalls bay
The clear cold moon on deserts of hard snow.
Onwards they came; then the black clouds gave way Before the temple, and, like portal gates,
Stood wide. The trampling now of many steeds
Grew louder, and the savage din of war
More fierce weapons gleamed bright in the far ether,
And polished helm and glittering crest flashed back
The light of seraph eyes. Then, cased in mail,
And under the sublime o'er-shadowings
Of blazoned banner, and soul-moving plume,
That dreadful host came onwards, in high pomp,
As flushed with recent victory. Alone,
Though in the midst of this immense conclave,
Rode One, upon a horse of blood, all red
And gory, from the greaves unto the helm ;
And his gigantic arm, all stripped and bare,
Scarred deep by many a wound, shook in the face
Of heaven, and waved terrific over earth
A ponderous sword; for it was his to take
Peace from her, and to scourge her with the curse
Of WAR. Onwards he came, with maniac look,
And bloodshot eye-balls starting, and wild foam
Dried on his beard. With brand and falchion out,
And sabre flashing through the kindling air,
His minions followed him, and shouted loud;
While the grim hosts, that had so lately wrenched
Apart the grave's clenched jaws, the tyrant kings
And conquerors of old, joined their thick ranks,
And plunged forth towards earth. On earth they
And he, the mighty one, whose withering face
Was as the blistering sirock, whose look,
Falling on cities, turned them into ashes,
And upon rivers, changed them into blood,
Rode in the midst, waving his flesh-gorged sword,
Even as a signal, stern and terrible,
For Havock, whose blind fury knows no end,
To make her tiger spring.
Through all the earth, a frightful conflict waged;
Nation on nation rose, proud armaments
Stood out from shore to shore, and with the stern
Mandates of their loud cannon hushed the roar
Of the indignant main, whose emerald face
Glowed like a blood-red ruby; rock and hill
Stood crowned with marshalled armies, mountain
Bristled with glittering spears, and armed hosts
Poured from their summits, like down-rushing floods
Whose course is desolation. The earth shook
And rocked beneath their tread, the green grass died,
The glorious flowers of summer, the kind grain,
That bows in adoration towards heaven
In the autumnal breeze, fell down before
The trampling of steeds, and deadly crush
Of mailed feet. Then slaughtering host met host,
With shock terrific, lunge, and thrust, and stab,
And anvil-blow, felled their ten thousands. DEATH
Sat in a high regal state upon the breach,
With hell's own engines,the dread cannon round him,
Piled over bodies and dissevered limbs,
Quivering with lingering life. Carnage astride,
On snorting Vengeance, with an arm of fire,
Plunged to the terrible charge, and came back
proud,
O'er mountains of the dead, and through a sea
Of blood.
O'er the wild and maniac world This havoc spread, and scarce a spot was known Where WAR was not. The sun rose day by day Upon fresh feats of slaughter, and new scenes
Of strife and massacre, engendering the worm
In the unburied heaps of slain. Calm night,
That might have thrown her veil of darkness o'er
Such cursed work, was made to glow like day,
By burning cities, throwing their red light
Abroad upon the thick sulphuric air,
Half-fraught with pestilence. Then savage lust,
Whose deeds make murder seem a virtue, and
The slaughtering of the old in sanctuary,
Or tossing up young children in the air,
And catching them on spears, but as the acts
Of very pity; multiplied foul sin
Beyond hell's loathing. Then snapt in twain the ties Of kindred, and dear nature's holy bond
Was cancell'd; for the murderous soul of him, Who first broke through the womb, burnt in each heart
Like fire; and all men thirsted now for blood,
As it were water, to allay the heat
That parched them. Brother now on brother fell
Remorseless, and the dagger ripped its way
From heart to heart, till the arm sank unnerved,
Or palsied by the phrensy of revenge.
The stripling son upon the hoary father
Turned, fiend-like, clutching his accursed hand
In the gray hairs, and cleaving to the chine
Without a shudder; while the father rushed
Upon the son, and plunged the deadly steel,
Up to the hilt, in his fierce bosom. Some
Were witnessed weltering in their gore, with hands
Cramped at each other's throats, and strangled eyes
Full starting from their sockets, but yet fixed
In glaring malice on each other, through
Death's bitterest convulsions.
Of horror that congeals the very blood,
The multiform and ever-changing groups,
In sweating wrath contending, still were known
And made familiar to each distant clime:
The tug, the struggle, and the deadly strain,
The piercing whoop, and tearing of the scalp;
The crashing of artillery, and clang
And clash of battered mail, did almost seem
To be eternal. Thus the spell of him,
Loosed by the opening of the second seal,
Made earth one din of butchery, and changed
Men into demons, hearts into volcanoes,
And sent abroad the spirits of mankind
In ceaseless enmity and deadly strife.
DEAR-BOUGHT GLORIES.
-O! WAR, what art thou?
After the brightest conquest, what remains
Of all thy glories? For the vanquish'd, chains;
For the proud victor-what?-Alas! to reign
O'er desolated nations, a drear waste,
By one man's crime, by one man's lust of power,
Unpeopled! Naked plains and ravaged fields
Succeed to smiling harvests, and the fruits
Of peaceful olive, luscious fig, and vine.
Here rifled temples are the cavern'd dens
Of savage beasts, or haunt of birds obscene;
There populous cities darken in the sun,
And, in the general wreck, proud palaces
Lie undistinguished, save by the dim smoke
Of recent conflagration. When the song
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