II.

By the brute soul that made man's soul its food;
By time grown poisonous with it; by the hate
And horror of all souls not miscreate ;

By the hour of power that evil hath on good;
And by the incognizable fatherhood

Which made a whorish womb the shameful gate
That opening let out loose to fawn on fate
A hound half-blooded ravening for man's blood;
(What prayer but this for thee should any say,
Thou dog of hell, but this that Shakespeare said?)

By night deflowered and desecrated day,

That fall as one curse on one cursed head, 'Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray, That I may live to say, The dog is dead!'

1869.

XV.

MENTANA: THIRD ANNIVERSARY.

I.

SUCH prayers last year were put up for thy sake;
What shall this year do that hath lived to see
The piteous and unpitied end of thee?

What moan, what cry, what clamour shall it make,
Seeing as a reed breaks all thine empire break,

And all thy great strength as a rotten tree,
Whose branches made broad night from sea to sea,
And the world shuddered when a leaf would shake?
From the unknown deep wherein those prayers were
heard,

From the dark height of time there sounds a word, Crying, Comfort; though death ride on this red

hour,

Hope waits with eyes that make the morning dim, Till liberty, reclothed with love and power,

Shall pass and know not if she tread on him.

II.

The hour for which men hungered and had thirst,
And dying were loth to die before it came,

Is it indeed upon thee? and the lame
Late foot of vengeance on thy trace accurst

For years insepulchred and crimes inhearsed,

For days marked red or black with blood or shame, Hath it outrun thee to tread out thy name? This scourge, this hour, is this indeed the worst? O clothed and crowned with curses, canst thou tell? Have thy dead whispered to thee what they see Whose eyes are open in the dark on thee

Ere spotted soul and body take farewell

Or what of life beyond the worm's may be Satiate the immitigable hours in hell?

1870.

XVI.

THE DESCENT INTO HELL.

January 9th, 1873.

I.

O NIGHT and death, to whom we grudged him then,
When in man's sight he stood not yet undone,
Your king, your priest, your saviour, and your son,

We grudge not now, who know that not again
Shall this curse come upon the sins of men,

Nor this face look upon the living sun
That shall behold not so abhorred an one

In all the days whereof his eye takes ken.
The bond is cancelled, and the prayer is heard

That seemed so long but weak and wasted breath ;
Take him, for he is yours, O night and death.
Hell yawns on him whose life was as a word
Uttered by death in hate of heaven and light,
A curse now dumb upon the lips of night.

II.

What shapes are these and shadows without end
That fill the night full as a storm of rain
With myriads of dead men and women slain,
Old with young, child with mother, friend with friend,
That on the deep mid wintering air impend,

Pale yet with mortal wrath and human pain,

Who died that this man dead now too might reign, Toward whom their hands point and their faces bend? The ruining flood would redden earth and air

If for each soul whose guiltless blood was shed There fell but one drop on this one man's head Whose soul to-night stands bodiless and bare, For whom our hearts give thanks who put up prayer, That we have lived to say, The dog is dead.