CHAPTER IV.

And so the night fell redly down, Such a night as man ne’er hath seen-- One vast crimson glare through the universe, And weird phantoms flitting between The stars that glowed in the vast far voids, Falling prone on the earth and sea. Horrible convulsions ran all amain, Staggering the mountains under me; And lightning leapt from the fierce red clouds, And the appalling thunder shock Seemed to rive the firmament in twain, Crashing from mountain and rock to rock. And fiendish voices shrieked through the air, Mocking and gibing at man’s doom; And the pale, dead legions heaping the plain, Peering out of the gory gloom.

And the battle ceased not; through the night It raged with the fury of hell, And the ponderous blows that Albion dealt Like a destroying angel fell. They pressed the Russians from line to line By the bayonet and sabre stroke; On and on with a deathless valor, Through their vast divisions they broke. And the left of the line stands firm, where The Germans are sternly at bay, Assailed by the Gauls in furious hate,-- They must not and will not give way.

But the right is threatened and sorely pressed By the Sultan’s valiant corps, For like rocks they abide before the fire The Italians and Austrians pour. Avalanches of smoke and raging flame From the batteries belch far and wide; Like a misty veil cover all the field, And creep up the great mountain side. ’Twas as a mist of blood, obscuring but Slightly the struggle; and on high The bright aerial ships still hovered In conflict along the fierce red sky.

Suddenly, with terrific, awful throe, The earth was rent at the mountain’s base, And hot sulphurous fumes uprose, and Demoniacal cries, and the face Of Satan, with horrible equipments, Crawled up o’er the red rim of hell; And twelve flaming legions of fiends--lost souls-- Sprang after, and into phalanx fell. With flaming harness all scaled, bedight, Hideous blazoned shield and lance, With Satan, Lucifer and Apollyon, They prepared their direful advance

To the help of the mighty adversary, Gog and Magog. They clanged their shields, And raged and uttered such blasphemous, Malignant, and discordant cries As only the infernal conclaved Regions of the damned could vomit forth. And frightful shapes--scorpions, lizards, vampires, Dragons, and serpents--wriggled up, Hissing, and spread along the scorched ground Their poisonous slime and horrid breath; And all things venomous, of which to touch, To breathe, is loathsome, instant death!

I was horrified and appalled, And raised my eyes in prayer; And oh, the sight that met my affrighted gaze, In the red cloud’s tremendous glare! The celestial army, by some wondrous Evolution, poised o’er the foe-- Poised central--and hurled annihilation To the Satanic hosts below; Hurled vast streams of glaring lightning, And rending thunderbolts roaring fell, And countless blinding meteors scathed And ruined Satan where they fell. Avalanches of ponderous aerolites Tore the maw and counterscarp of hell! Nameless armaments beat Satan’s cohorts down, And a hideous, discordant knell Of rage, despair, smote the shuddering hills, With’ring the verdure all amain, And rolled in nameless horror along The lines of that ensanguined plain.

Nearer and nearer swooped the celestial Legions in majesty and might, Until, all ruined and beaten down, The demon foe were put to flight, And Satan seized and bound with a chain, And hurled blaspheming back once more Down the accursed, eternal void of Damnation’s frenzied awful shore! Closed and sealed was that deadly maw Of desolation and of doom, That man might escape the horror of an Everlasting suffering and gloom.

All through the lurid night the conflict raged With furious, unabated breath, Swaying backward, forward, with frightful carnage In the cruel revelry of death. And the flame and light of that vast battle, And the veil that shrouded all the sky, Made light as day upon the earth and sea, And where the air ships fought on high. All the night Albion had pressed the huge Centre of the foe from line to line, Pressing onward, aye, steadily onward, With deeds of chivalry sublime.