So he made truce with those who Who shook with mortal spells his undedid despise The expiation and the sacrifice, That, though detested, Islam's kindred fended reign? XXXVII 'Ay, there is famine in the gulf of hell, Its giant worms of fire for ever yawn,Their lurid eyes are on us! Those who fell By the swift shafts of pestilence ere dawn Are in their jaws! They hunger for the spawn Of Satan, their own brethren who were sent To make our souls their spoil. By gadflies, they have piled the heath and gums and wood. XLIII Night came, a starless and a moonless gloom. Until the dawn, those hosts of many a nation Stood round that pile, as near one lover's tomb Soon blazed through the wide City, where, with speed, Men brought their infidel kindred to appease Two gentle sisters mourn their God's wrath, and, while they burned, knelt round on quivering knees. desolation: And in the silence of that expecta Of Hell: each girt by the hot atmosphere Of his blind agony, like a scorpion stung By his own rage upon his burning bier Of circling coals of fire; but still there clung On mine the fragrance and the invisible One hope, like a keen sword on starting flame Which now the cold winds stole ; she would have laid Upon my languid heart her dearest I might have heard her voice, tender Her eyes, mingling with mine, might My soul with their own joy.--One I gazed-we parted then, never again to meet ! threads uphung :— IX Not death-death was no more refuge or rest; Not life--it was despair to be ! not sleep, For fiends and chasms of fire had dis possest All natural dreams; to wake was not to weep, But to gaze, mad and pallid, at the leap |