CHAPTER III.

Hist! what’s this horror stealing o’er the serenitude of heaven? A weird panoply of cold, metallic light had driven All the deep-toned azure of the summer skies away. A spectral terror seems to chill the very noon of day. And see! those strange, dark phantoms falling on the earth and sea, Portending calamity. An appalling mystery Envelops all the horizon, and a pending doom Seems inevitable to man; and nature’s woof and bloom Is smitten by a poisonous and hot simoon.

But see! it changes. A wondrous crimson flood Hath enveloped earth, sea and sky in lurid robes of blood! And from out the awful threatening deeps, and voids on high, Marshalling legions of phantom armies go sweeping by! And they wheeled in vast evolution on high o’er where I stood. The hosts of heaven, in the glorious panoply of God, Wheeled into huge lines of columns fronting on the foe; In golden chariots and equipments strange, and burnished so. I bowed in awe; I could not bear the dazzling sight Of that mass of immaculate glory, intensely bright. But I thought with ecstasy, that heaven would fight this day For the Christian hosts in the vale, and bear the foe away To destruction, desolation, and bind Satan with a chain, And cast him down headlong, to trouble man never again.

But hark! from the threatening vale below Comes a rumbling commotion, A sullen roar, as when storms sweep across The wrathful face of the ocean; And from Albion’s front move two thousand guns Sternly rolling upon the foe, With vast corps of riflemen in support; And swiftly forward flashing go The bicycle divisions, and quick-fire guns, A destructive torrent to pour. And aloft are the airships and balloons; Like great eagles they rise and soar With dire explosives and deadly machines To hurl death on the lines below-- The awful lines in manœuvre vast In the strange light glittering so. Suddenly along those ponderous fronts Bursts the roar of the dreadful guns, Causing the very earth to tremble As through it the vibration runs. And peal on peal incessant staggered The great mountain on which I stood; And the responsive, bellowing thunder Of the adversary froze the blood. Thus, loosed from the leash, the dogs of war Burst in nameless fury on the foe, And death was hurled from the clouds above To the hosts in the vale below.

And I saw lines of airships advancing, Soaring like mighty birds of prey; And rent asunder were the lurid clouds That obscured the red god of day. And I saw them glide on to each other, The opposing lines up on high, And the trumpet call from balloon to balloon Manœuvred them through the sky. And still dropping their horrid explosives Below to the shattered plain, They seek by quick aerial manœuvres Advantageous positions to gain. And thus rising, poising, and advancing, Pausing in close column and line, The strange scene was awesome and wonderful, And immeasurably sublime. Fiercely on each other with quick-fire guns Destruction they now madly pour, And infernal machines and magazines Add their terrible, deadly roar. And out on the vast aerial spaces It echoed and rolled away, A shuddering and horrible tumult, Lost in distance grim and gray. And contending there for the mastery, Some collided with ruinous clash, And fell from the fierce crimson clouds above To the earth with a horrid crash.

And thus they fought in the aerial plains To cover their own below, And to hover o’er, and hurl destruction On the contending mammoth foe.

I looked on the fearful scene below, And the earth was pent with the slain; And the deafening and tumultuous roar Rolled o’er the embattled plain. And from the hot lips of six thousand guns Leaped whirlwinds of smoke and flame, And the fiendish missiles tore divisions Asunder, in ruin amain.

In majestic evolution vast masses Of infantry enter the fire zone, And whole fronts of magnificent columns Into eternity are blown. And the bicycle corps and quick-fire guns Into the maelstrom of battle go; Flashing in and out all along the fronts, They deliver their blow on blow. Vast clouds of cavalry charge on the wings At intervals along the line; And the mighty reserves _en masse_ abide Magnificent and sublime.

And these enormous adversaries sway In furious struggles to and fro, Repelling, receding, and advancing, Like the vast sea-waves’ ebb and flow. Incessant charges of the cavalry Sweep like whirlwinds over the plain, And though thousands fall in the mad _melee_, They charge and recharge again. And they shore whole lines into fragments Where confusion had entered in; Where the foot and horse had suffered most, They drove their wild charge within. Again and again they too were hurled back, Broken, beaten, and swept away By the deadly guns and the magazines Of the infantry’s ceaseless play.

And explosives drop from the fierce red clouds, Hurling death and dismay around, Making ghastly rents in the shattered ranks, Chasming the trembling ground. And the infantry charged fierce and wild With the bayonet’s resistless play, And their deadly work in the mad _melee_, Added horror to the ghastly day. Thousands of banners waved through smoke and flame, And wild cheers rent the glaring sky; Along the lines for leagues and leagues Rose the dauntless battle-cry. And oh, the incessant tumultuous roar! On the shuddering world it fell; It seemed to rise from the infernal pit, The red bellowing maw of hell.