the doors of refuge wide,
Took to them lightning in the thunder-tide.

For storm on earth above had risen from under,
Out of the hollow of hell, [_Ant._ 6.
Such storm as never fell
From darkest deeps of heaven distract with thunder;
A cloud of cursing, past all shape of thought, 221
More foul than foulest dreams, and overfraught
With all obscene things and obscure of birth
That ever made infection of man's earth;
Having all hell for cloak
Wrapped round it as a smoke
And in its womb such offspring so defiled
As earth bare never for her loathliest child,
Rose, brooded, reddened, broke, and with its breath
Put France to poisonous death; 230
Yea, far as heaven's red labouring eye could glance,
France was not, save in men cast forth of France.

Then,--while the plague-sore grew [_Ep._ 6.
Two darkling decades through,
And rankled in the festering flesh of time,--
Where darkness binds and frees
The wildest of wild seas
In fierce mutations of the unslumbering clime,
There, sleepless too, o'er shuddering wrong
One hand appointed shook the reddening scourge of song. 240

And through the lightnings of the apparent word
Dividing shame's dense night [_Str._ 7.
Sounds lovelier than the light
And light more sweet than song from night's own bird
Mixed each their hearts with other, till the gloom
Was glorious as with all the stars in bloom,
Sonorous as with all the spheres in chime
Heard far through flowering heaven: the sea, sublime
Once only with its own
Old winds' and waters' tone, 250
Sad only or glad with its own glory, and crowned
With its own light, and thrilled with its own sound,
Learnt now their song, more sweet than heaven's may be,
Who pass away by sea;
The song that takes of old love's land farewell,
With pulse of plangent water like a knell.

And louder ever and louder and yet more loud
Till night be shamed of morn [_Ant._ 7.
Rings the Black Huntsman's horn
Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud, 260
Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear;
Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear,
Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale,
Till