.
See, by the living God! see those foot
Charging down hill--hot, hurried, and mute!
They loll their tongues out! Ah-hah! pell-mell!
Horses roll in a human hell;
Horse and man they climb one another--
Which is the beast, and which is the brother?
Mangling, stifling, stopping shrieks
With the tread of torn-out cheeks,
Drinking each other's bloody breath--
Here's the fleshliest feast of Death.
An odour, as of a slaughter-house,
The distant raven's dark eye bows.

Victory! victory! Man flies man;
Cannibal patience hath done what it can--
Carv'd, and been carv'd, drunk the drinkers down,
And now there is one that hath won the crown:
One pale visage stands lord of the board--
Joy to the trumpets of Captain Sword!

His trumpets blow strength, his trumpets neigh,
They and his horse, and waft him away;
They and his foot, with a tir'd proud flow,
Tatter'd escapers and givers of woe.
Open, ye cities! Hats off! hold breath!
To see the man who has been with Death;
To see the man who determineth right
By the virtue-perplexing virtue of might.
Sudden before him have ceas'd the drums,
And lo! in the air of empire he comes!

All things present, in earth and sky,
Seem to look at his looking eye.

III.

OF THE BALL THAT WAS GIVEN TO CAPTAIN SWORD.

But Captain Sword was a man among men,
And he hath become their playmate again:
Boot, nor sword, nor stern look hath he,
But holdeth the hand of a fair ladye,
And floweth the dance a palace within,
Half the night, to a golden din,
Midst lights in windows and love in eyes,
And a constant feeling of sweet surprise;
And ever the look of Captain Sword
Is the look that's thank'd, and the look that's ador'd.

There was the country-dance, small of taste;
And the waltz, that loveth the lady's waist;
And the galopade, strange agreeable tramp,
Made of a scrape, a hobble, and stamp;
And the high-stepping minuet, face to face,
Mutual worship of conscious grace;
And all the shapes in which beauty goes