The Tyrant passed, surrounded by the steel Of hired assassins, through the public way, Slaves, bind him to the wheel; and of this band Whoso will drag that woman to his side Choked with his country's dead;- That scared him thus may burn his The scales of victory yet; let none Of slaughter became stiff, and there survive was peace anew: XII Peace in the desert fields and villages, Between the glutted beasts and mangled dead! Peace in the silent streets! save when the cries Of victims, to their fiery judgment led, Made pale their voiceless lips who seemed to dread, Even in their dearest kindred, lest some tongue Be faithless to the fear yet unbetrayed: Peace in the Tyrant's palace, where the throng Waste the triumphal hours in festival and song! XIII Day after day the burning sun rolled on The few lone ears of corn;-the And many a mother wept, pierced with sky became Stagnate with heat, so that each unnatural pity. Died moaning, each upon the A ghastly brood conceived of Lethe's other's face sullen water. XXIII Sometimes the living by the dead were hid. Near the great fountain in the public square, Where corpses made a crumbling pyramid Under the sun, was heard one stifled prayer For life, in the hot silence of the air; And strange 'twas 'mid that hideous heap to see Some shrouded in their long and golden hair, As if not dead, but slumbering quietly, Like forms which sculptors carve, then love to agony. XXIV Famine had spared the palace of the king: He rioted in festival the while, One shadow upon all. Famine can Was loosened, and a new and ghastlier night In dreams of frenzy lapped his eyes; he fell Headlong, or with stiff eyeballs sate upright Among the guests, or raving mad did tell Strange truths, a dying seer of dark oppression's hell. XXVI The Princes and the Priests were pale with terror; That monstrous faith wherewith they ruled mankind Fell, like a shaft loosed by the bowman's error, On their own hearts: they sought, and they could find No refuge 'twas the blind who led the blind. So through the desolate streets to the high fane The many-tongued and endless armies wind In sad procession: each among the train On him who brings it food, and To his own Idol lifts his supplications vain. |