Portents

Above the world a glare     Of sunset guns and spears;     An army, no one hears,     Of mist and air:     Long lines of bronze and gold,     Huge helmets, each a cloud;     And then a fortress old     There in the night that phantoms seem to crowd.     A face of flame; a hand     Of crimson alchemy     Is waved: and, solemnly,     At its command,     Opens a fiery well,     A burning hole,     From which a stream of hell,     A river of blood, in frenzy, seems to roll.     And there, upon a throne,     Like some vast precipice,     Above that River of Dis,     Behold a King! alone!     Around whom shapes of blood     Take form: each one the peer     Of those, who, in the wood     Of Dante's Hell froze up the heart with fear.     Then shapes, that breast to breast     Gallop to face a foe:     And through the crimson glow     Th' imperial crest     Of him whose banner flies     Above a world that burns,     A raven in the skies,     And as it flies into a Death's-Head turns.     The wild trees writhe and twist     Their gaunt limbs, wrung with fear:     And now into my ear     A word seems hissed;     A message, filled with dread,     A dark, foreboding word,     "Behold! we are the dead,     Who here on Earth lived only by the sword!"