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Survive the perished scroll of unenduring brass."

Canto III

Meantime, the tyrant in his lust for blood allied himself witH all the kings of the earth, pagan and Christian, for the purpose of slaying his people. Millions of foreign soldiers came over and made the country a shambles, and those who were not put to the sword were devoted to the wheel, the fire, the pincers, the hook, and the scorpions. Five days the slaughter lasted, and on the seventh day there was peace

1 Peace in the desert, fields, and villages, Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead! Peace in the silent streets! save where the cries Of victims to their fiery judgment led,

Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread Even in their dearest kindred lest some tongue Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed; Peace in the tyrant palace, where the throng Wastes the triumphal hours in festival and song.

2 Day after day the burning sun rolled on Over the death-polluted land—it came Out of the East like fire, and fiercely shone A lamp of Autumn, ripening with its flame The few lone ears of corn;—the sky became Stagnate with heat, so that each cloud and blast Languished and died,—the thirsty air did claim All moisture, and a rotting vapour passed

From the unburied dead, invisible and fast.

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3 First Want, then Plague, came on the beasts; their

food Failed, and they drew the breath of its decay. Millions on millions, whom the scent of blood Had lured, or who, from regions far away, Had tracked the hosts in festival array From their dark deserts, gaunt and wasting now, Stalked like fell shades among their perished prey; In their green eyes a strange disease did grow, They sank in hideous spasms, or pains severe and slow.

4 The fish were poisoned in the streams, the birds In the green woods perished; the insect race Was withered up; the scattered flocks and herds Who had survived the wild beast's hungry chase Died moaning, each upon the other's face

In helpless agony gazing; round the city, All night, the lean hyaenas their sad case Like starving infants wailed; a woeful ditty! And many a mother wept, pierced with unnatural pity.

5 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 Creaked 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 burned;—so that the meanest food was weighed With gold, and avarice died before the god it made.

6 There was no corn—in the wide market-place

All loathliest things, even human flesh, was sold; They weighed it in small scales, and many a face Was fixed in eager horror then: his gold

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The miser brought; the tender maid, grown bold, Through hunger, bared her scorned charms in vain; The mother brought her eldest-born, controlled By instinct blind as love, but turned again And bade her infant suck, and died in silent pain.

7 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 brother's 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.

8 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, Childhood, and youth, and age, writhing in savage pains.

9 It was not thirst, but madness! Many saw Their own lean image everywhere; it went A ghastlier self beside them, till the awe Of that dread sight to self-destruction sent Those shrieking victims; some, ere life was spent, Sought with a horrid sympathy to shed Contagion on the sound; and others rent

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Their matted hair and cried aloud, " We tread On fire! The avenging Power his hell on earth has spread."

10 Sometimes the living by the dead were hid. Near the great fountain in the public square, Where corpses made a crumbling pyramid Under the sun, was heard one stifled prayer For life, in the hot silence of the air;

And strange 'twas, 'mid that hideous heap to see Some shrouded in their long golden hair, As if not dead, but slumbering quietly, Like forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony.

11 Famine had spared the palace of the king:— He rioted in festival awhile,

He and his guards and priests, but Plague did fling One shadow upon all. Famine can smile On him who brings it food, and pass, with guile Of thankful falsehood, like a courtier gay, The house-dog of the throne; but many a mile Comes Plague a winged wolf, who loathes alway The garbage and the scum that strangers make her prey.

12 So, near the throne, amid the gorgeous feast, Sheathed in resplendent arms, or loosely dight To luxury, ere the mockery yet had ceased That lingered on his lips, the warrior's might Was loosened, and a new and ghastlier night In dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell Headlong, or with stiff eyeballs sat upright Among the guests, or raving mad, did tell