That night, the slow mists of the evening dropped,
Dropped as a cloth upon the dead, but rose
A little higher, to a young girl's height;
Till all the valley glittered like a lake,
Beneath the moonlight, filled with sluggish mist.
That night, the Red Horse grazed beyond the Dam
A stone's throw from the troughs. Men heard him feed,
And those that heard him sickened where they lay.
Thus came the sickness of Er-Heb, and slew
Of men a score, and of the women eight,
And of the children two.
Because the road
To Gorukh was a road of enemies,
And Ao-Safai was blocked with early snow,
We could not flee from out the Valley. Death
Smote at us in a slaughter-pen, and Kysh
Was mute as Yabosh, though the goats were slain;
And the Red Horse grazed nightly by the stream,
And later, outward, towards the Unlighted Shrine,
And those that heard him sickened where they lay.
