University of Virginia Library

The old man said: “Laugh, then, while yet your eyes
Are still unblasted with the miseries
These days have brought on us!—Lo, if I tell
Half of the dreadful things that there befell,
Ye will not listen,—if I tell the shape
Of these fell monsters, for whom hell doth gape,
Still will ye say that but my fear it is
That speaketh in me,—yea, but hearken this,
For certainly such foes are on you now
As, bound together by a dreadful vow,
Will slay yourselves, and wives, and little ones,
And build them temples with the sun-bleached bones,
Unto the nameless One who gives them force.”