Songs of the Seasons :: :: University of Virginia Library

Then gambol the great Whales, and lave
The footstool of my dazzling throne,
And Behemoth, with eyes of stone,
Watches them, crouching in his cave.
A thousand fountains are at play
On this hybernal holiday;
Ten thousand creatures urge their way
Towards the curtain of my shrine.
I welcome them, but make no sign!
The Walrus, with his wizard stare
And pendant tusks, the timorous Seal,
The subtle Fox, the Arctic Bear,
Surly and gruff, with teeth of steel—
All to my footstool come and kneel.

Waist-deep the Syren of the Sea
Reveals herself in woman's form,
Impersonating modesty:
Ubiquitous in calm or storm,
In sunny and in frigid clime,
Her pearly comb she ever plyeth
'Mong tresses of the softest silk,
Which o'er a bosom that defieth
In candour, ivory or milk—
Playing, choice morsels of delight
Reveal, and to warm thoughts incite.
And with this ravisher consort
As shapely forms, but chaste and cold,

Befitting more our Arctic court—
The Nereid, with her loves untold,
And vestal groups, whose faces scanned
Are impotent of all desire,
Repressive of the unlawful fire,
Yet win adorers at command.

Show there, the Triton and his conch,
With sturdy Mermen, ready aye,
When of my icebergs I make launch
To tender active fealty.
The Mermen these from whose blue eyne
The Sea Kings borrowed azurine—
Borrowed the cruel glare and sheen
Which in their fronts lay manifest;
As on the lowering thunder-cloud
Lie couch'd the tokens of unrest,
Ready with utterances loud,
And fiery tongues, at signal given,
To storm the embrasures of heaven.

O'er century hath roll'd century,
And generations of mankind
Have pass'd, I cannot call to mind
Their number, yet no change in me,
Or in my Polar Sovereignty!

There came among things animate,

In quest of plunder to my realm,
Once on a day, with brows elate
And eyes that gleam'd below scarr'd helm,
These Sea Kings. Forests had been fell'd
To build their ships, and demons yell'd
Round cauldrons and vast furnaces
In which the red ore fum'd and sung,
Which was to aid their ravages,
In shape of halbert and of mace,
And falchion and the barbed tongue
That points the shaft in war or chase.
For then the Scandinavian ore
Aspired not to take higher place
In the fierce strife of brotherhood,
Nor was to service put of yore,
As now, in engines terrible.

It was as yesterday review'd,
When their huge galleys hugg'd my shore,
Throng'd, poop and stern, with reivers fell.
A towering vessel led the van,
And at its helm a towering man,
Broad in the chest and limb'd therefrom
With arms, like spreadings of the oak,
Which centuries, under heaven's black dome,
Have sinew'd, and the thunder stroke
Only inured and fitter made
To wrestle with the fire and storm;

So jointed on his lofty form
These movers of the hands of might—
The red, right hand that grasped the brand—
The wary left that swayed the helm,
And toward the white ports of my realm
Steer'd, without asking or invite.

That Sea King's tale again was told
In modern time, and yet again!
New histories but repeat the old
Linked to the epochs of my reign.
One instance let suffice;—no need
To name the hero rashly bold.
Resolute both in creed and deed,
Who, in the cause of Science, braved
My power, and thought to break the spell
By which I held Earth's ends enslaved.
The secret of his fate to tell
Were to imperil my Arctic throne.
In darkness I shall keep my own—
Reign among silences profound.
Who over-vaults the appointed bound
Must rue th' offence. I, while I reign,
Shall reign supreme, and they who dare
Affront me, at their cost, I swear,
May do so once, but not again.

Prepare for me, ye temperate zones!

Autumn and Spring! I warning give—
One dying and the one to live!—
I shall sit 'twixt you on your thrones.
My Snow Queen and her brother Frost
Will with me, when I head the host
And Southward charge—shall go before
My Uhlans arméd to the teeth—
Sworn on the sword, without a sheath,
To halt not till their task is o'er.

Foremost, fierce Tempest, with command
To strip the gorgeous forests bare
To bend their lofty masts, and tear
Their plumes to shivers; so the land
Shall mourn, that vaunted of their power:
His errand, too, as I draw near,
To shake the temple and the tower,
And in high places cause to cower
The Mammon worshippers in fear!

Then Famine, a precursor oft
Of my approach, as often left
To work his will on the bereft,
Driven at my hands from cot and croft.
Not crueler than the bloated priest,
This willing messenger of mine;
He breaks no vow, he robs no shrine,
No glutton he, nor swills the wine
Blest on the altar at God's Feast.

Companion of this Uhlan gaunt,
More ghastly, but a speaking match,
Pacing together on the watch,
Together chanting the same chant,
Is Pestilence, by Summer nursed,
And fostered, on her royal demise,
In Autumn's arms, where burning skies,
Stretched o'er a land by War accurst,
Drink in the steams from fetid swamps
To sate Day's thirst and dim Night's lamps.

Thou renegade among my hosts!
I neither trust thee nor suspect;
I act the Wrecker, but the Wreck'd
Lie at thy mercy on Earth's coasts.
The Fire King has a pact with me,
When both of us have duty done,
To rear an altar to the Sun,
And on its red horns immolate thee!

To mount my Uhlans, I have cast
The compass round. Blest Araby,
The dreary steppes of Tartary,
The New World and its Prairies vast,
All fail me. Not the Emerald Jewel,
Nor England, for these riders cruel
Can to the saddle bring and rein
A fitting barb. I cast in vain

Over palatial parks; I make
Study in vain of pedigrees—
Take note of sweepstakes won with ease—
Consult in vain the wide-awake—
Descend to stable talk, and chaff
With trainers and the jockey crew.
Before such were, or were but few,
I lived, and on my side the laugh
Remained, when our select discourse
Turned on the merits of the Horse:—
For I had stridden Bucephalus
And Job's war charger in their day,
Had taken a turn on Pegasus—
Raced with the Centaurs—held my way
With Timour in his Tempest raide—
To Troy's disasters lent my aid,
And Hercules to his labour urged,
When he the Augean stables purged.
Many a time have I pursued
Across the Ukraine, for my sport,
Clouds of strong horses, when the feud
At highest was with Autumn lewd,
And the fierce spirit of retort.

Within the circle of my sway,
In places unapproachable
By man, where Night is ring'd with Day,
And all things lie below the spell

Of Frost, in crevasses and caves
Are stored the products of the chase.
There, life-like, in dissembled graves,
Draped by my Snow Queen, finds repose
The equine with the antlered race;
Not to recount my victories
O'er huger spoils, and lift the snows
That hide my glistening ivories.

Let these alone! I am in quest
Of chargers for my Uhlans three,
And I have cast from East to West,
From North to South, o'er Land and Sea
(One valley only left unsought),
Yet failed to find a fitting mount
For these wild servitors of mine.
The cost I care not for nor count;
Let rattle dice and gurgle wine—
Good! I begrudge them not.

In a valley never gladdened
By the passing of the sun,
In a valley overrun
With shadow, and by shadow saddened;
Chilly, silent, lonesome, eerie,
Travelled by a river weary,
That at every turns shews halt,
As if in its course at fault,

Pausing among passes dreary:
In that valley, all remote,
Shunn'd even by the fearless goat,
Where browse nor kine, nor deer, nor sheep,
Nor elephant nor antelope;
For with the sun-rays those of Hope
Penetrate not within its scope;
And all around is utter Sleep.
In that valley stands a tower,
One only—a grim structure, such
As in the days of feudal power
Braved Law, and in its robber clutch
Held, with immunity from toil,
Life, freedom, and ill-gotten spoil—
A grim old structure, loop-holed o'er,
Save in the basement, which betrays
Through narrow slits a dungeon floor,
Deep sunk, and under it a lower.

In that tower is a banqueting hall,
And the tables are spread, but every one
Of the guests around them, twelve in all,
Is a grinning, ghastly skeleton.
The tables were spread, I wot not when,
Where is the host to make thirteen?
And who the intruder that now and then
Peeps in, and with his fingers lean
Grasps the great goblet at the head,

And nods and quaffs, and forth is sped,
Like one in haste that cannot stay
The Feast out, but must mount and away?

Near to that tower is a courtyard: there
Are the stables I seek, and the training-ground
Of the steeds that will suit to a very hair
My Uhlans. The lord of the Manor round,
The lord of the Valley, the lord of the Feast,
'Tis true, is travelling in the East
With a strong retinue. What matter!
The leaner he grows his train shews fatter.
So generous is he, so foreseeing
Of my requirements, at his Tower,
Was left the message—“Brother Power!—
Part, but a sure Part in my Being—
Enter my stables—take your will
Of what you find! I warrant all—
Colts, three and four year olds. The rest
And refuse will have bidders still;
And were there none, the trumpet's call
And the war-saddle would make test
Of pedigree; but choose and take
The fittest—I no bargain make,
Save that you give them work to do,
And spur and whip and high halloo.
It boots not of their dams to inquire,
Enough to know who is their Sire,

And who I am, and whence I sally!
Their Sire is the Pale Horse—I, Death,
His Rider, Monarch of the Valley!
Speak of Us in an under-breath:
We have the gift—My Horse and I—
No Pope can claim—Ubiquity,
And with his breed in part remains
This virtue latent in their veins.
Choose for thine Uhlans what thou wilt,
And welcome! Thou of the icy breath!
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Is open as the day to thee.
Only the hardened sons of guilt
Tremble before Sin's Eldest-born.
My valley is of Terrors shorn
To those who trust in Calvary.
Come, Brother Winter! sound thy horn,
'Twill fright the Beldame at the gate
That guards the avenue of Fate,
So thou may'st enter in thy state,
And with my ready stud make free.”

A blear-eyed crone, a fangless hound
Keep ward behind the rusty gate,
Through which the dolorous Estate
Of Death is entered. Round and round
Whirl spectres. An approach to sound,
And, as it were, sound's shadow, fills

The ear—a whispering indistinct,
To which the muttering of the crone
And creaking of the hinge are linked,
And wail and shriek, and moan and groan,
And the old bandog's snarl. Even rills
Seem to be tinkling, and the ring
Of distant bells is on the wing,
With every sound below the sun,
As 'twere, resolving into one
Dread Silence, overpow'ring, strange,
Such as is meetest to express
Th' expiry of all sounds—their change—
And hurrying towards forgetfulness.

Up the avenue I sweep
Without challenge at the gate;
The old Beldame is asleep,
Snoring, mumbling, muttering,
Under spell of opiate;
And the bandog feigns a spring
From his antiquated barrel—
Tristful shakes his mangy jowls—
Vents a wind-up to his snarl
In three melancholy howls!

As I hurried up the Vale
Many the strange sights I saw—
Passed by many a shadow pale

Under sentence of the Law—
Many a shivering ghost—King, Peer,
And Peasant, Millionaire and Pauper—
Poet and Sage and Cavalier;
The Harlot and the Madame proper—
The Reverend—Very Reverend
Who prophesied the round world's end,
But of his own knew nothing—read,
Even as a dead man to the dead,
God's Gospel, and discoursed of Grace
And Glory with a brazen face,
As if he held, direct from Heaven,
Authority to bless or curse,
And privilege to fill his purse
By dispensations—ay! and worse,
To make belief of sins forgiven
By power of priestly intercession—
The cost, a plenary confession,
With recognition of the Host,
And altar-gifts beyond all cost.

Among the trooping ghosts, I pass'd
None so disconsolate as those
Who gold and lordships had amass'd,
At sacrifice of life's repose
Had toiled and sweated to the end—
Cast kindred overboard and friend—
Love's torch extinguished—not an aim

Had, beyond adding to and keeping—
Sneer'd at the Scholar, sneer'd at Fame—
Reproach'd themselves as over-sleeping
Their opportunity for gain
When Nature needed sleep. In vain
The knowledge—“Naked to the Earth
Whence naked came ye at your birth,
Mortals! ye shall return.” Alas!
The strange delusion! that shall pass
With them into the World to come
Their many hoardings—crust and crumb!
No marvel, on my way I read
The panic in their faces—spelt,
Letter by letter, the expression dread
Of a great, sudden anguish felt
To the heart's core—a stroke that told
On Reason, making dross of gold.
The thunder-bolt upon their god
Had fallen, and with the idol crushed
Its worshippers—the pæan hushed—
And all the voices of applaud
That made divine the yellow clod.

Of these there was no end of ghosts!
The flakes my Snow Queen letteth drive
In her impatient moods, were nought,
When number'd up, to the great hosts
That issued from the Money Hive,

And in death's dolorous Valley sought
Their smitten credit to revive.

I pass'd, moreover, in that ride
Of Mystery, the shades sedate
Of Mortals who had hugg'd with pride
The notion they could master Fate.
Among these there were Kings discrown'd
And sceptreless—their counsellors—
Their pimps and executioners—
The captains of their host renowned,
Stript of their stars and medals, all,
Under an impulse past control,
Mixed with the common herd—on way
To where the sifting shall take place,
And the allotting of dismay—
The second Death which Judgment Day
Apportions with its gifts of Grace.

I, Winter—an appalling Power,
Who in my rage am merciless,
And care not whether Man or Flower,
Army or Orchard, meet distress—
Appalled was in this trying hour!

Onward to the Stables I press'd,
But halted oft in wonderment,
Oft in compulsion; for the bent

Of the dark Vale was a puzzle at best!
Like a huge Python's trail it lay,
Its river running neither way,
Making no sound, but a smother'd moan—
Shewing no life or colour-tone:
Only at intervals there shot
Across it an uncertain glare,
Bituminous and deadly hot,
That stirred the curtains of the air,
But scarcely stirred. Its lurid glare
Reveal'd the surface of the stream
Studded with bubbles heavily;
Not the bright foam-bells, such as I
Transmute, when in my humours fond,
To emerald and diamond,
But baleful ebullitions, bred
In slimy depths where rot the dead.

On as I press'd, the fetid fumes,
As of discharg'd torpedoes, vex'd
My nostrils; gloomier grew the glooms,
Wilder the road, and more perplex'd!
I awful caverns passed and chasms,
From which peep'd dragons belching fire,
And faces writhing under spasms,
And eyes of terror where desire
Had dwelt, and still its spirit dwells,
Like the waves' voice in empty shells.
Goblins and visages of dread

Encounter'd me at every turn;
These wanting, obelisk or urn
Or gloomy cypress shewed instead.
Crept from their ambush to my feet
Gaunt crocodiles and lizards vast,
The slimy creatures of the Past,
Fabulous pronounced or obsolete:
The Kraken, Kelpie, Water Witch,
Sea Serpent, and the Worm of Dole,
That gnaw'd the vitals of the Soul,
And left the body in the ditch.

All hideous things and loathsome cross'd
My path—the deadly rattlesnake,
Cobra, puff-adder, and in wake
Of these, their victim's writhing ghost!

On as I press'd the horrors grew.
Huge vampires flitted by me, ghouls—
Terrible birds, with eyes like owls',
But crueler; and as I drew
Nigh to Death's Castle, there rushed out
To greet me its grim sentinel,
The Were-Wolf, with a savage yell.
A troop of tigers hung about,
And fain would spring, their famished eyes
Fix'd on me, but I wav'd them back,
And they slunk, shivering, jungle-wise,
And left me to pursue my track.

Strange lights are gliding to and fro
In the Castle of Death as I draw near.
From the loop-holes and the dungeon slits
Banners are hung in scribed with Woe,
Judgment, Eternity, and Fear;
The fiery flashing comes in fits
And reads them—the Escutcheon reads,
And its devices—shews aloof
The great black Flag that o'er the roof
Of highest battlement outspreads
Its drapery. A hundred creeds,
Each torn into a hundred shreds,
The sable folds o'erhang. The tents
And violated tenements
Of Trillions of Immortal Souls,
Loves, Hatreds, and Desires, are all,
Under the Shadow of that Pall,
Committed to the moles.

As I drew nearer, under daze
Of the strange sights that met my eye,
While yet in silence and amaze
I ponder'd on the mystery,
A sound stole on the ear of neighing—
The neighing of high-mettled steed
In distant stable, and the baying
Of hounds in kennel at their feed;
My errand, nigh forgotten, came

All suddenly to mind. I threw
The daze off, and the terror too,
Link'd with the Valley's ominous name,
And on I strode the Castle past
Towards the courtyard where were housed
The fav'rites of the stud. At last
I reach'd the entrance, and aroused
The ancient Master of the Horse.

A surly-visaged bully he,
No limner could have etched a worse
Ideal of Iniquity.
Brows scowling over eyes oblique
And sinister—a livid cheek
Gashed to the bone—nose hammer'd in—
Contorted lips, on which the sneer
Held turn with a malicious grin;
More loathing caus'd the shape than fear;
Wen and wry-neck'd, hunch-back'd, splay-footed,
And bandy-legged. No doubt, he suited
His office well, and did the work
Of his employer without shirk.

A mock obeisance, cap in hand,
He made, and whistled on his staff.
Responding with an eldritch laugh
There started up the goblin band,
One, two, three, four, five, six, aye! seven,
Rare specimens of imp and ape!

Contained the like nor earth nor heaven,
In cast of feature and in shape.
Moon-faced, globe-headed, goggle-eyed,
Lean, spindle-shank'd, and what beside?—
The special grooms that in the Stable
Of Death had groom'd the Pallid Horse
On the dire morn that Cain slew Abel,
And, like a shadow, crept Remorse
Behind the slayer Earth's whole length—
Growing in terror and in strength
The further from the stricken corse.

I heard a snorting and a tramping—
A neighing, vigorous and shrill—
The noise as of a squadron camping
At eve of battle when the chill
Sets in; for the War furor stretches
Beyond the Camp where council grave
Is held, and its infection catches
Oft times the Horse, and in the watches
Of Night, with other instincts, blends
The sense that he fulfils his ends
In dying, like his rider—brave!

With his lean finger he beck'd me on,
The surly Master of the Horse,
Nor spake, but took direct his course
Towards an archway, dark as throat
Of dragon, where a skeleton

Paced to and fro; and from a moat
In front, by narrow drawbridge cross'd,
The shimmering came of snakes afloat,
Twisted into a cable. At its post,
On either side the drawbridge, stood a ghost!
A beck from the master!—a leer and grin
From the Goblin grooms; and away they skip
Helter skelter, with brandished whip,
Across the drawbridge—scamper and spin—
Sidle and hop, and twirl and twist,
And shake their moon faced noddles gravely.
Marry! I wist
They are doing the honours bravely
To the strange guest of the Terror King!

My surly guide, I following,
Confronts at his appointed post
The warder on this side the Moat—
An affable and simple ghost,
As was his fellow opposite.
I tendered him a shining groat,
But he declined, with bow polite,
To accept it, and to pass made way
Along the drawbridge for my guide
And me. The moat below us lay
A vast way down, but I descried,
Revolving in the deep profound,
What seemed a fiery cable. Round

And round it spun, with wildering speed,
And threw out light enough to read
Its nature by. From basilisks' eyne
Flashed fitfully the electric sheen.
The seeming cable shewed instead
A mass of serpents interlaced
One with the other—tail and head—
Warp, strand, and tissue, every thread
Alive and writhing—chasing, chased—
Devouring, and in turn devour'd!
Before me was the mystery
Of Life in Death, most strange to see!
I halted on the Bridge, and fell
A pondering on the Terrible
In time and in Eternity,
When suddenly the whisper “Coward!”
Rous'd me. Who utter'd it I sought
In my guide's face to know; but there,
So far as I could see, lay nought
Which gave a pretext to infer
Whence sprang the insult; yet the word
Moved me—moved ready hand to sword!—
An icebolt gathered to my eye,
Which, in the levelling, shewed force
Against the Master of Death's Horse.
To hurl it were expenditure
Of Power upon a curry-comb—
A churl who hugg'd his sinecure

And vision of obliquity;
Otherwise, to have sent it home
Not Death himself could have hinder'd me!

Again the snorting and the neighing
Of horses, and of hounds the baying,
Told of the Stables and Kennels at hand.
The Ghosts that kept ward o'er the fiery Moat
Escorted us on and did the bland,
Until we drew near to the gloomy throat
Of the archway—where, their errand done,
They vanished, and the skeleton
Stalked forward to salute us.

The goblin grooms preceding us set up
The view halloo among a rush of bats,
Whose leathern wings made tempest of its kind,
As through the dismal archway we advanced,
Until the courtyard, circled by Death's stables,
Brought to a sudden halt. Meanwhile, the neighing,
Snorting, and plunging, and all equine sounds
Imaginable, kept the ear distraught.
Fiercer and more insufferable grew
The wild distraction, when there came to play
Part in the discord many strident voices—
A Bell that had done duty in its day,
Chiming out joys at merry festival,
Tolling out griefs at woful funeral—
Crack'd now, yet armed with a conceited tongue

That would its bygone virtues still extol!
A Trumpet that had rallied to the fight,
And startled slumbering Nations with its voice,
Which Fame had lifted to her burning lips
And pour'd her soul through—batter'd, out of shape!
A Hunting Horn, which, erst by Nimrod winded,
Had urged to the hot chase and stirred to life
The echoes of the uplands—gnarled with rust!
A Lute with broken strings—an Organ sacked
Of its grand thunder-store—a muffled Drum,
A Bag-pipe repossessed by seven devils
Worse than the first that wail'd ands hriek'd and skirled,
And puff'd and snorted, drawl'd and dron'd in turn—
An old used-up Cremona, with its ribs
Staved in, and the rich soul of music,
Emprison'd in it as by sorcery,
Run out. By report it was the same
That Paganini won his laurels by;
And now a very mouse might parody it,
And the vile screech-owl, as a rival, start,
More versed in Melody. Such were the sounds
And such the Instruments that welcomed me
To Death's dread Stables! Such the Orchestra—
Instructed to do honour to Death's Guest!

Emerging from the Archway to the Courtyard,
All suddenly, as by a flash of magic,

I lost sight of the Master of the Horse
And Goblin escort; and instead was faced
By Tempest, Famine, and foul Pestilence,
My clamorous Uhlans! How they had passed up
The Valley, in advance of me, half puzzled;
But three huge chargers rolling on their backs
In agony, their nostrils spurting blood,
With foam commingled, and their hoofs flung up,
A story told of speed and sacrifice.

In light of a good Augury my Uhlans
Regarded the disaster—plumed themselves
On its acceptance as an offering
Made to the Shadowy King, and with each other
Laid odds on the requital. I devoured
The marrow of their talk as one that reads
Resistlessly the pages of Romance,
And with its spirit becomes identified.
Auxiliary to my intents were theirs,
And I, by nod and gesture, gave approval.

At a right angle from its first direction,
All suddenly, the dialogue diverged
And settled on the merits of Death's Horse.
It was a rare discussion, out of which
Eliminated strange conclusions
Regarding origin and pedigree
And the descendants of the pallid Charger.

All knew the Sire, for he had crossed them oft
In hunting and in battle field alike,
In earthquake, conflagration, hurricane,
In city, desert, and the rolling sea;
But his descendants none had seen or known.
Heretofore—so I learnt from their discourse—
They had been reckoned fabulous, and classed
With Centaurs and Chimeras. Was it so?

The dialogue went on. To the turn it came
Of Pestilence to speak—the hated Uhlan
Condemn'd, by pact, to grace the Altar's horns!
Astride the carcase of his horse he sate,
And with sepulchral voice and loathly breath
Declaimed, in terms of fulsome eulogy,
Touching the grisly Monarch of the Valley.
Discarded parasites speak highly oft
Of their discarders, on a shift of tenure,
So spake this skulk in eulogy of Death.
And this the wind-up of his narrative—
Its purpose I divined—to disaffect
His brother Uhlans, and make mutiny.
But Tempest backed me up, and Famine took
A neutral part. The incident described
Is one of many such that have taken place,
And will take place until the end of Time.

“He smote and smote, in front, to right and left,
And when, in very centre of the Smiter,

A shell exploded, meant to annihilate,
Unscorched, intact, and imperturbable,
In front, to right and left, the Rider smote!
A hedge of corpses lay on either side,
Forming a lane, on furthest end of which
Upheaved, upheaving, showed a mound of dead
So high and so impracticably broad,
In every sense deterrent to the nerve,
None could have pushed beyond it, but the One;
And He—the Double-He—the Horse and Rider,
At easy vault th' obstruction over-topped,
And away passed, to enact the massacre
Upon another stage. I, Pestilence,
As was my duty, with my Ghouls and Vultures,
Pitched Tent and hoisted up the Yellow Flag.”

Scarce had the loathly Uhlan finished speech,
When re-appeared the Master of the Horse
Beckoning to the stables. I in front
Dispersed, by virtue of my icy breath,
The thousand maladies in spectral form
Way-laying our approach. A sudden turn
Brought into view a Churchyard vast—so vast
That all the prairies of the Western World,
The Afric deserts, and the howling wastes
That hug my frontiers, blended into one,
Were nothing to this camp of burial.
So vast! my ken distinguished no horizon,

No boundary, yet here and there a speck
In the far distance—a Necropolis,
Obelisk, mausoleum, monument—
So I divined; and here and there a patch
Of sable timber—Upas, Yew, and Cypress—
Under whose ghastly cover toad-stools shew'd,
And noxious creatures sputtered out their venom
To feed the hemlocks and rank parasites.
All this by apprehension I divined.

What most attracted in this Churchyard vast
Were the great clouds of horses; some at feed,
Grazing in quiet; some in full career,
Scouring the flats or bounding up the heights;
Legion their number! all the cavalries
Of the contending kingdoms of the Earth
Could challenge no comparison. The waves
Beating upon a thousand capes and headlands
Came nearer to the mark. Astonishment
Stood out upon the faces of my Uhlans,
And questioning looks were levelled at the guide.
No answer but a curt, derisive laugh
He deigned, and beckon'd onwards to the Stables.

[_]

(Interpart omitted.)