As once Protesiläus who reviewed
The human scene in more than human mood
And breathless in our upper kingdom sickened
And the old pilgrimage of death renewed.
Or as if hell-escaping dæmons thickened
In countless legions
Like locusts darkening these devoted regions,
Leaving their desert haunts untenanted,
Hungry for habitation, to possess
With madness an uncounted populace
And hurl them down, and tear, and leave them dead.
As though whole peoples erred and wandered unaware
Past the frontiers of Providence,
Beyond the vital air
To alien elements
To suffocate beyond God's atmosphere of care;
Hordes that in far migrations overpassed
The universe's habitable zone
Or some entire population gassed
By man-devisèd poisons yet unknown,
Or foul contagion sown,
Or liquid fires from the hostile heavens cast.
Corruption taints the world, plunged in the noisome night
Of some ill-starred eclipse,
The sun-devouring dragon casts his shade,
The isles take fright,
The peoples are dismayed,
A jaundiced blight
Has fallen on the luxuriant globe.
The moth of death is in the many-stranded robe
That mortals weave against the Apocalypse,
Its travailed woof that time transmutes
To stuff of gold
Crumbles to mould.
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